The Jugheads

by J.R. Helton

East Texas in the 1960s is not the worst place to have grown up, but for narrator Jake of The Jugheads , it was a minefield. Describing clearly and courageously first jobs and first kisses, family vacations and family fights, Jake takes us through a wild ride of a coming of age, in an ordinary American family that he believes is as violent and dysfunctional as they come. By turns hilarious and moving, The Jugheads is a compelling return to form for a master of the underside of the American psyche.

304 pages, Paperback

First published October 7, 2014

Reviews

[Eric Howell]

If limited to only one word to describe and summarize Helton’s “The Jugheads,” I would say: gut-busting. This book hit me, hard, like a right thrown by Richard Stewart himself from the first page onward.

I had to put the novel down, on multiple occasions, due to laughing uncontrollably, hunched to the point of pain and tears. Once settled, I would ask myself why Jake’s constant, tragical misfortune and psychotic father, Richard, warrant such hysterics. Was I sadistic? Cold? Heartless? In moments of such clarity, I learned it was nothing more than familiarity! Much like looking back on past traumas, whether that of the embarrassing variety or dangerously serious, all I could do was laugh at Jake Stewart’s hardships and tell him, as well as myself, “it gets better.”

From each dark, tormented detail of the narrator’s combustible reality, a fragmented shard of relatable truth is violently flung forth from the pages directly into the reader’s mind. Lodged deep within, it is this truth that quickly spreads, fusing Jake’s harrowing life experiences with our own, causing a reflexive reaction of empathetic reflection. The resulting aftermath of such a reaction is nothing less than the eruption of booming, heartfelt laughter and joy, leaving readers knowing that although life can be cruelly tough, we are resiliently tougher.

[John Oakley]

The Jugheads is kind of weird, that’s for sure. And you likely won’t find it on the shelves at Barnes and Noble, that’s also (probably) for sure. But it is a powerful, emotionally raw story that is tightly bound with close-cropped and straightforward language. J.R. Helton tells you directly what happens and he allows the monotonous, though often strange, details to build up and up and up so by the end of the book this feeling of desperate melancholy rains down, washing away all the extraneous details to reveal a story that at its core is an optimistic account of one kid’s journey to understand himself. This understanding of self requires a torturous familiarity with his generally mediocre circumstances and his genuinely terrible father. Jake eventually understands what he has to do, and he eventually comes to terms with the emotional cost of that journey. The Jugheads provides a contradictory, pessimistic optimism – things can seem terribly unfair and oppressive to our protagonist Jake, but once he fights through that adversity he finds himself, the value of that prize in and of itself is huge.

The account of the Stewart family is blunt. It is darkly, absurdly honest in its depiction of a typical American family born and bred in Texas. Helton reveals that what seems dull on the surface is full of life, whether it is depressing or twisted or sad or angry, he shows it to us with all the force of reality. As Jake grows up in this East Texas town and beyond, he begins to witness the dark truth of the world that exists just beneath the surface of the American dream. Helton’s language is stripped back so much that it feels like we are right up against reality, with our noses on the TV screen and our eyes melting.

My only complaint is that it feels like it drags on, but even that aspect of the novel gets put to work as a useful tool. In the same way that Jake gets inundated with the millions of odd jobs and chores that his father makes him do, as well as all the flak that his teachers and coaches constantly give him, the reader might get a little bored. It feels like the same old Jake getting the same old short end of the stick in life. While it can lead to slight boredom, it is an effective way to put us in Jake’s shoes. Helton’s true artistry comes in his ability to allow us to not only read, but feel what this story is like. It is immediate. It comes together with a shocking amount of emotional force that will take you by surprise, but once it hits you, like a well-crafted right hook, you will see that it was planned all along.

So, it’ll be worth it to sift through all the Google results of Jughead comics to find this novel.

[Renata]

Every time I read a novel about dysfunctional families I think how worth a rent is.
"He hit the ground again and again. Like he was mad at it. Like he was mad at everything. I held my shovel and realized, perhaps this was it for him. This was as far as he'd go. He'd always be digging a useless trench on a yellow road on a hot hill in the middle of nowhere. He was an ant, a loser, a jughead."

[Jeanne Thornton]

Yeah so full disclosure, I was involved in the making of this book, and I consider Helton a friend. But I believe in this book A LOT. Story of a boy growing up in Texas in the 1970s, constricted in the family circle, dominated by a Thoreau-possessed father hell-bent on constructing the American Dream on the backs of his family. If you like Celine, if you like Henry Miller, if you like Bukowski--if you like books about what it takes to endure the devil in the form of your own father, I'll go ahead and say this--please give this a try, okay.

[Stephanie]

I would actually give this 3 1/2 stars. The writing is really good and I enjoyed the story - it just didn't go anywhere at the end. I guess that has to be expected in a fictionalized memoir - if it gets too crazy then it's less believable?? Writing endings must be pretty difficult.

[Nick Huntington-Klein]

One of the best novels I've read in a while. Peters out a bit towards the end but who cares? A great character study of an unusual take on a terrible father.

[abbas keshvani]

Vivid, honest, simultaneously tender and scathing.

This is an easy read - the pages practically flipped themselves.