This is called a novel, but it is more like a series of anecdotes, much like the monologues the author excelled at. It tells the story of one Brewster North, from his late teens to his late thirties, and like the rest of Gray's work, it seems mostly autobiographical. There are many emotionally powerful moments here, scenes that provide insight into American culture and its changes over the years, interesting presentations of family life and life among the Boho set. Gray's conversational style is better suited to storytelling than to prose, but the book is well written. There are moments where I would have liked him to provide more depth or background, but boom, his mind is off like a shot into the next adventure or perception.The book begins with a description of North's middle class Yankee family life as he was growing up in Rhode Island in the 1950s. His mother developed a mental illness when North was a teenager and ultimately committed suicide, and event which haunted him ever since. There is a hilarious, witty description (one of many) of North getting drunk after a girl he has been seeing dumps him because he is unable to have sex with her, then driving to see a production of "The Sea Gull", where he is bitten by the acting bug. North does some acting after college, then moves to New York with his longtime girlfriend Meg in the 1960s. There is an interesting description of a long journey they take to India and Europe in around 1975, including a lovely sojourn to the Himalayas, a visit to Shri Bagwan Rajneesh's ashram, and a long, strange stay in Amsterdam where North has his first gay experience. Upon returning to the U.S., North and Meg visit his father for the bicentennial Independence Day celebration, and this 10 page segment is one of the best satirical descriptions of American life that I have ever seen. North proceeds to exhibit some type of emotional breakdown in which his behavior becomes strange, his drinking increases, and he is unable to motivate himself. Althou it is not clear what happens, he does begin to pull out of it. The book ends with a solo visit to Santa Cruz and its hippie scene, followed by a week in a Las Vegas jail for beating a check. This was an enjoyable and lively book - a portrait of a clever, funny correspondent of the personal and the public, and of American life. I was a big fan, and I was saddened to hear of his tragic death, but he left behind a lot of good work for us to enjoy.
A few thoughts on Gray's novel, which is the first thing I've read of Spalding Gray's works.I think watching Soderbergh's And Everything is Going Fine was a good intro into Gray's distinctive voice & obsessions. However, many of the stories in Impossible Vacation were touched on in the film.While the story is about Brewster North's travels here in the US & abroad, the abstract idea that eludes him is the ability "to hang out"--a catchall term for being comfortable in the moment.North's interlude w. another man in an Amsterdam bathhouse makes me want to go back & read Matthew's rantings in Nightwood.The ending insight is sad: North has a realization of wholeness yet begins the whole story again, trapped in a loop. Will he be able to reach clarity again? We know the answer from real life.
Do You like book Impossible Vacation (1993)?
I read this book a while ago for book club. Normally I enjoy a good downward spiral, life spinning out of control, woe is me tale. But this one? Not so much. Why not? I think even the author was disconnected from his narrative. It was all surface and no depth. If I'm going to read about someone else's mental descent into hell, I like to learn something about life while I'm doing it. It doesn't even have to be something uplifting, it can just be a little instruction about why life is hell and how much other people suck and how nothing will ever get better. But this story gave me nothing. Bottom line reason I might tell my enemy to read this book? I couldn't even recommend this particular read to my worst enemy.
—Laura
It's crazy to think that this novel was originally 1,900 pages Considering that the finished version was just a little over two hundred. My god, how Spalding goes on a journey. It is like a nonstop slideshow of human suffering, sex, art and spiritual searching. There are so many memorable parts in this book. He and the girl he is cheating on his girlfriend with go and buy strange masks so they can videotape themselves having sex. His nervous breakdown when he is only awake for four hours of the day. His mothers suicide. Trips to India. Weeks in jail making toast with inmates. I never got bored. He really milked this fucker for all he had.
—Kye Alfred Hillig
I have mixed feelings about this book. I love Gray's monologues, and this was essentially the written equivalent. As a matter of fact, those of you who have seen Gray's "Monster in a Box" might be interested to know that this book is that Monster, albeit pared down from its original monstrous 1,900 pages to a more manageable 228. The trouble is that Gray’s material works best when delivered by Gray himself. When he delivers his monologues, the viewer is won over by his considerable charm and intelligence. In Gray’s “absence,” so to speak, one is all too aware of how annoyingly self-centered and self-indulgent this man can be--and there’s no doubt in my mind that the narrator, one Brewster North, is indeed Spalding Gray’s alter-ego. Brewster North is a baby boomer and the product of a privileged, but dysfunctional, family. He is one messed up guy. He aches to experience something real, only to discover that--alas--he seems constitutionally unfit for it. His relationships and everything else he engages in feel like roles he is trying on. He drifts from one place to the next, one person to the next, one experience to the next. He’s an observer and a collector, as opposed to a real participant. He’s always waiting to be swept up into something meaningful, but seems unwilling or unable to be the master of his own fate. He is a narcissist who will never find fulfillment because he views the world and everything in it solely in terms of his own needs and desires. This book made me laugh at times, but it also depressed the hell out of me.
—Kathleen
