Coming of Age Takes Center Stage: The Best is Yet to Strum

I don't often read books by men or about men or for men, so when I do, I feel a little like an anthropologist.  Or at the very least, a gender studies minor at Vassar.  Maybe I avoid men's fiction because it lacks clothes commentary.  Unless you count descriptions of how some broad's ass looks in Levi's, which I do not.  Interestingly, you rarely hear about men reading women's books, or as they're often so disparagingly called, chick lit.  Maybe it's like how it's mainstream for women to wear pants but not for men to wear skirts.  Or maybe it's just that women are more open-minded.  

Anyway, I recently read The Wishbones by Tom Perrotta (yes, the man who brought us Election), and I really liked it.  It's about this guy, Dave, who plays guitar in a wedding band and is having second thoughts about marrying his high school sweetheart.  A manchild in his early thirties, Dave still lives with his parents in suburban North Jersey.  His girlfriend, Julie, still lives with her parents too, and she and Dave have been dating (on and off, as Dave is always quick to point out) for fifteen years.  Dave's whole world is his music.  He knows he's not good enough to make the big time, but that's (mostly) okay with him.  It's more about having the freedom to do what he loves.  And also, to goof off with his friends, one of whom is agoraphobic.  (If this were a movie, then it'd be firmly rooted in bromance territory.)  Dave's one of those angry young men fighting the man, even if he, as Perrotta tells us, is born to be more mild than wild.

". . .in general, marriage seemed to require that a man check his valuables at the door; his dreams, his freedom, all the wildness that had defined the secret part of his life, even if, like Dave, he wasn't all that wild in reality.  It was easier if you were a woman.  Women were supposed to want to get married, to go through life with a husband and children.  A man's job, as far as Dave could see, was simply to resist as long as possible without surrendering to the inevitable.  You didn't have to play guitar in a wedding band to know that there was something at least slightly pathetic about a bridegroom." (26)

Although I disagree with the sexist notion that it's only men who fear marriage and giving up their independence, I get what Dave is going through.  Probably because I can identify with him more than his alter-obsessed leading ladies (for yes, there turns out to be more than one).  Growing up is universal.  It's difficult and bittersweet for everyone.  For Dave, the tipping point (pun intended) is seeing the elderly front man from a rival band topple off the stage to his death.  That incident is the catalyst for everything that comes after, a situation, as the cliche goes, that gets worse before it gets better.  One stop on Dave's journey is a new "friendship" in New York City, where he works part time as a courier.  His New York alter ego ends up at an open mic night and tries to convince himself that he and real-life Dave aren't all that different.

"Some of the readers looked like poets and some of them looked like regular people.  A handful of them looked like nuts, but Dave found out pretty quickly that it was useless to try to judge sanity, or even talent, from the reader's appearance; all you could do was wait for the words.  It was like going to a big party and meeting lots of strangers in quick succession.  That was all the reading was as far as Dave could tell -- people standing up in front of other people, most of whom they didn't know, and saying, to the best of their ability, "Here I am.  This is what I'm all about." " (147)   

As Dave listens to the performers, he recognizes their need to be seen.  Because it's his need too, is, in fact, why he's in the city in the first place.  He reminisces about his missed chance to subsist on canned beans in a loft trying to become a rock star despite knowing it would've never worked out.  He tells himself that he could be a New Yorker, that he doesn't belong in the arrested development existence of his childhood bedroom.  Yet for all Dave's yearning to follow his star, he's more responsible -- and regular -- than he'd like to admit.  He's the wedding band manager's "rock" and the designated driver for his alcoholic buddy and band bassist Buzzy.  And for better or worse, Julie depends on him, even if she, as her parents imply, could do better.   

Dave learns a lot and goes through some stuff, most of which you can probably surmise without me being an out-and-out spoiler.  Still, for a while he -- and Perrotta -- kept me guessing, wondering about what both were trying to say about Dave's -- and our -- destiny.  This book is very realistic that way.  Dave could easily be your brother, best friend, or the kid who sat behind you in homeroom.  And that, as well as Perrotta's conversational yet lyrical writing, makes it poignant as well as entertaining.  The Wishbones suggests that not "making it" isn't about a dearth of heart or grit but about lacking the je ne sais quoi necessary for fame.  It tells us that facing the music doesn't always mean settling, that we should take the best parts of our past and future to weave a more melodious present.  

So, those are my research findings (for, as you may remember, I launched this rant beneath the guise of a scholarly study).  Men say that they don't want to grow up but secretly do want to and are better for it. 

Just as long as they can still sometimes pound beers and raise hell in the garage.