Vacation

by Deb Olin Unferth

book data

167 ratings, 3.75 average rating, 49 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		25%
4		40%
3		20%
2		12%
1		1%

edit

published

October 1st 2008 by McSweeney's

binding

Hardcover, 240 pages

isbn

1934781096 (isbn13: 9781934781098)

description

One man follows his wife, who is following another man. Earlier, that first man follows a bird out the window. Later, he doesn't follow a dolphin into...more

find at: Amazon | Half.com | Barnes & Noble | compare prices ($10.99)…

new topic
discuss this book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

friend reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

lists with this book

Best books of 2008

793 books | 2453 voters

More lists...

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 351)

sort: default (?) | date
filters: all | text-only

04/11/08

oriana rated it:

bookshelves: read-2008, read-for-work, the-new-new-new-new-thing

Oh stunning, my goodness, what a wonderful, devastating book. I was bewildered and despondent for an entire evening after finishing this (for the second time in a row -- just one of the benefits of being a copyeditor). Much like the previous McSweeney's I did, at a certain point (this one is clearly marked, by an earthquake), you have a sharp intake of breath because you realize that things are just going to get worse and worse and there's nothing you can do to slow it down or wish it better.
...more

Like this review? yes (11 people liked it)

5 comments

09/25/08

Stephen rated it:

bookshelves: mcsweeneys-book-club

Read in October, 2008

This book is typeset, designed and manufactured with wonderful skill and attention to detail. The paper's so soft you could use it to upgrade your baby's bottom. Holding the book in your hands feels luxurious; reading from it is a privilege.

In comparison, the novel itself was just okay. It's nicely written, if a bit bland. The narration is arch and distanced, which suits the subject matter but becomes a bit dull after a while. It jumps around in time quite a bit, often from one parag...more This book is typeset, designed and manufactured with wonderful skill and attention to detail. The paper's so soft you could use it to upgrade your baby's bottom. Holding the book in your hands feels luxurious; reading from it is a privilege.

In comparison, the novel itself was just okay. It's nicely written, if a bit bland. The narration is arch and distanced, which suits the subject matter but becomes a bit dull after a while. It jumps around in time quite a bit, often from one paragraph to the next - as a result it gives away the ending long before you get there, making the rest of the book a bit of a chore. Maybe that's too strong a word, because the rest is still fairly enjoyable to read, but from about halfway in you stop learning anything new about anything that's going on, other than the minor details; you're just watching things play out in more or less the way you expected, and my enthusiasm for the book waned the longer it took to get there.

The other main problem is that the plot relies upon the characters being stupid, and not just normal everyday people stupid, but Neighbours stupid. By that I mean the type of plot (typical of Neighbours) where a character is angry or suspicious about something their partner is up to, but they don't just try to clear things up - purely because that would short-circuit the plot. Instead, they decide their partner would have told them already if they really loved them, and stew about it until their partner leaves them for being such a grump. The entire plot of this novel derives from such dopiness. Maybe it makes sense for these characters to not talk to each other - the author gives them reasons for not doing so - but over the course of years it's hard to believe no one ever got drunk and said something like, "So, you've been following this guy around?" or "Tell me about the time you jumped out of a window."

The story makes a bit more sense to me when considered as a metaphor, or a fable, and the characters as symbols, of what we do in life, for questions of leaving and staying, and so on. There's something being said about relationships, and following each other, and routes not taken, and that kind of thing. But I'm not sure I agree with what is being said. The worst that can happen to a married couple in this book is to sit and watch television together, and then talk about it. That really didn't seem so bad to me: in fact, the characters could really have done with watching a few daft sitcoms to remind themselves what laughter felt like. Almost every character in the book was utterly humourless; to the point of inhumanity, even.

If Vacation had been a film by Wes Anderson, perhaps I would have loved it; if it had an appropriate soundtrack to put me in the right frame of mind; if the characters had been played by actors I like and trust enough to follow on a strange journey; if the foreign locations had been shot in living beauty by a master cinematographer. It had a lot in common with The Darjeeling Limited: both feature characters questing in exotic foreign lands, and both are meticulously crafted, deliberate, and confident of their own worth. But where The Darjeeling Limited instantly became one of my all-time favourite films, Vacation was just that little bit underwhelming.

But take everything I say with a handful of salt: any book lacking aliens or spaceships will struggle to make me totally happy. (I only got through David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia by pretending it was set on Arrakis.) That I even finished this book, despite its shortcomings in the extraterrestrial department, shows it must have been pretty good. All credit to McSweeney's Book Club for getting me to try something new. If I've focused on the negative, it's only because those things preoccupied me while I was reading it: others may find much to love in this book.(less)

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

2 comments

09/30/08

Suzanne rated it:

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in October, 2008

recommends it for: Wallace

Reading this was something of a vacation, indeed. Not the in-Florida-with-the-family-on-the 4th of July-type vacation, but more of a literal vacating. Of my usual, comfortable space. Of the traditional narrative retreat I usually seek. Of the conventional, the simple, the everyday. The intro included with this profile summarizes the plot as clearly as is possible, I suppose. (No easy feat.) So I'll avoid that and simply encourage anyone looking for a new voice, a journey through a strange-yet...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

10/23/08

kira rated it:

Read in November, 2008

Oriana recommended this book to me, saying "You think you know what kind of book you're reading, and then it keeps changing into something completely different than you expected." And she's exactly right. I read much of this book on an airplane and while traveling (I figured it was appropriate to read on vacation), so I didn't give it the full attention I would have liked. I'll definitely reread this book. Also -- the package is absolutely lovely -- luscious paper, fancy three-piece pa...more

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

1 comment

04/04/09

Rebecca rated it:

Read in April, 2009

Dearest friends -- someone please read this book so I have someone to discuss it with me! Wow.

I really like Deb Olin Unferth's writing -- I find her pace and tone and style is kind of like the way I think (perhaps this is disturbing, because this book is kind of disturbing).

I can't even really begin to describe this book. It's about love and longing and wishing things would be different. It fades and flows in and out of reality. The author makes fun of the reader at certa...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

01/06/09

Matthew rated it:

This book began with such promise. The sentences! Not surprised that Unferth acknowledges Gary Lutz and Diane Williams in the back of the book--she, like they, know well how to give birth to sentences that require re-reading and re-savoring, sentences that are new to the world, never before seen. Unfortunately, the book doesn't seem to add up to much, or worse than that, left me feeling like Unferth was willing to admit that this whole fiction-writing thing's just a game, one to be played cool a...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

06/03/09

Chris rated it:

Read in December, 2008

The first half of Deb Olin Unferth's debut novel, "Vacation," is largely devoted to the dissolution of a marriage between a man named Myers and his nameless wife. Myers' wife begins to spend her evenings following a man named Gray through a somewhat sinister cityscape. Myers follows close behind, unnoticed. Though the plot creates suspense -- Why is Myers' wife following someone who turns out to be her husband's college acquaintance? Will the couple ever reveal their secret followings?...more The first half of Deb Olin Unferth's debut novel, "Vacation," is largely devoted to the dissolution of a marriage between a man named Myers and his nameless wife. Myers' wife begins to spend her evenings following a man named Gray through a somewhat sinister cityscape. Myers follows close behind, unnoticed. Though the plot creates suspense -- Why is Myers' wife following someone who turns out to be her husband's college acquaintance? Will the couple ever reveal their secret followings? -- it is primarily the novel's language play that pulls one along.

Unferth's descriptions of the couple's relationship highlight the foolishness of believing you can truly know anyone or anything. In the beginning, the couple's normalcy "was stunning and thorough. It wasn't this fun house he lived in now -- distorted images, trapdoors, a lurching car." The narrative voice is beguiling -- a distant, bleak but compelling observer who will suddenly confront the reader or Myers with direct questions. Unferth disorients and often enchants with her ability to slightly skew the world and render it anew.

Unferth's language captures the joys and burdens of the mundane -- humans as creatures of routine, "each in our own mortal slipcase" -- but she is also adept at capturing the intricacies of coupledom:

"To be accurate, they had not fought about most things. They had not fought about the shape of certain objects, never disagreed about whether an object was round or tall. . . . It wasn't about arguing, of course, but one of them seemed to decide to pretend it was about the arguing and the other without saying so agreed and then there was no going back." The avoidance of confrontation becomes claustrophobic, and the marriage implodes. Throughout the novel, the tension between relationships and individual quests shows "how unobservant people are, how focused they are on themselves and their own crusades."

Leaving the love triangle unresolved, Gray disappears to Nicaragua and Myers pursues him into the alien landscape: "[T:]he entire affair was too hot, as if a madman had come along and heated the place up -- really outrageous -- and everyone walking around as if it were normal, as if the heat were the least interesting outrageous experience of the day." Myers' wife is left behind to relate her story of lifelong alienation to an unidentified listener.

At this point, narrative carnival replaces the order of urban following. The tale of a young woman and her estranged father, a dolphin "untrainer," undermines the hierarchy of Myers' story until the chapters are bouncing back and forth between voices. The story's climax is intentionally absurd, uniting all the characters around the release of a dolphin into the wild by a motley crew of government ministers, filmmakers, bikini-clad women and soda can-throwing waiters. Unferth plays with the ideas of vacation and "to vacate" -- "Vacations come in all sorts: the overdue, the one-stop, the unlikely" -- but she also excavates the familiar for the reader's pleasure. As Myers' wife observes, sometimes all we have is "the dim conviction that we have expressed ourselves vividly."

- Originally appeared in the LA Times on 12/21/08(less)

Like this review? yes

add a comment

04/19/09

Alex V. Cook rated it:

Read in April, 2009

I finished this book last week but waited a bit to see what my reaction would be. Like an exotic tea, you have to give books like this time to steep, a moment to cool off before really seeing what it tastes like. Also like exotic teas, it is very easy to get caught up in the packaging - this book, like most McSweeney's books, is gorgeous. The text on the page seems almost embossed on wedding announcement paper tinted the slightest possible shade of green. The sentences and paragraphs laid out in...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

11/12/08

PANK Magazine rated it:

We're such big fans of Unferth here at PANK, we're probably creepy. You must read this book.

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

12/18/08

Greg rated it:

Read in December, 2008

I swear I wrote a review for this at the time. Oddball, inevitably tragic (and after finally reading Martin Eden last year, too), and the sort of thing that I accept as well-done but probably just wasn't in the mood for. Though it strikes me now as the sort of thing Wes Anderson lovers would enjoy. Being one of them, I probably should've enjoyed it more.

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

09/29/08

Linda rated it:

Read in September, 2008

recommended to Linda by: McSweeney's bookclub

Misunderstanding, marital discord, manic searching, natural disaster -- all woven into a bleak story with a very small amount of final redemption. A big departure from the 'gentler' fiction I usually read, but turned out to be a thought-provoking change of pace.

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

add a comment

11/24/08

Ron rated it:

bookshelves: beatrice-reading-series, dark-humor, debut-novel

Read in November, 2008

You could say it's the story of a man who discovers that his wife has been following another man around New York City, and then tries to track that man down and winds up lost in Central America. Or you could say it's the story of a woman who catches a fleeting glimpse that first man on a train in the midst of her own troubles. It's both those things... and more.

Unferth's oddly grounded but surreal language may remind you of other writers like Sam Lipsyte, but she has her own emotiona...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

05/27/09

Evelyn added it

Read in May, 2009

Some really good sentences:

"The moral grid of steel spired up the side" (34).

"Or she could be searching for a way to tell him, she could be looking for a brink to be on, or an edge to be off. She could be feeling too prominent, like the most prominent object in any scene, she could be fleeing that, wanting diminishment, wanting extraction, to be taken out of any given situation. Where could she walk to that she wouldn't be?" (40).

"The...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

01/14/09

Nathan rated it:

Read in February, 2009

This novel has everything I love: existential concerns over identity (presented through a relationship), travel (to Central America no less) and a playful consideration of the relationship between language and being. The writing is often lovely and now and then astonishing, but, at times, it becomes a bit precious. This is the danger of stylized writing (only Donald Barthelme and Nabokov manage it at all times, as far as I'm concerned) and the lapses into banality are essential to throwing the...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

03/04/09

Tara rated it:

Read in May, 2009

I've been with this book now for a long time out of sheer love of it. Every chapter is chopped up into little pieces, and every piece is almost like it's own little story, like Unferth dropped a tiny explorative device into the brain-body of one of her characters for a moment, so the piece is for a snap-shot moment soaking and burbling in there, recording all the stuff of the aching body, the wandering body, the unconscious and the dream images, and also the physical earth and all its sameness/w...more

Like this review? yes (2 people liked it)

3 comments

10/01/08

Marie rated it:

bookshelves: mcsweeneys_book_club

I'm surprised at how much I liked this book; at first I felt like it had a serious case of MFA-itis, and I'd get to the end feeling like I'd wasted my time and gone nowhere, but it's actually a page-turner that I couldn't put down. Yeah, the dialog is a little stilted and lacks quotation marks, it's hard to care about the characters for awhile, and it's got that slightly airless "written for writers" quality that usually turns me off, but this story was going somewhere, quickly, and t...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

06/21/09

christopher rated it:

Read in June, 2009

An astounding novel, and I'm glad to have finally gotten to it. It is a strange little world she creates here, managing to make you feel claustrophobic in the most wide open of spaces. She has a painter's sense of light, light and water are the most described things in this book. And it skirts the line between happy and heartbreaking in the absolute best sense.

Like this review? yes

add a comment

01/03/09

Katie rated it:

Read in January, 2009

I was going to rate this higher because I enjoyed the wit, intelligence, energy, creativity (etc) of DOU's prose so much, but the last quarter of the book lost some momentum for me. I found myself caring less nearing the end--as focus left Meyers and his situation became repetitive--rather than more. Endings, sadly, can be star-swaying.

Like this review? yes

add a comment

03/13/09

Mathew rated it:

bookshelves: books-with-white-covers

Read in March, 2009

I am amazed at how similar this book is to Atmospheric Disturbances: A Novel. The story line was similar, the sentence structures (great, btw), the unevenness of the novel (first half fantastic, second half could use work) - all reminded me of that other novel.

Like this review? yes

add a comment

12/04/08

Matt Briggs rated it:

Confounded by the good reception this book has received. It has a nicely executed numb tone and some very nice sentence fragments placed in good spots. In writing this down now there were some good things, but in general the book felt kind of chilly and addled to me.

Like this review? yes

add a comment