Author writes in the long tradition of self-immersion

Great writing is often born out of trauma. From the exile poems of Ovid and Dante to the war novels of Ernest Hemingway and Erich Maria Remarque, writers have always sought to forge resonance from chaos.

Lowboy, the third novel from the Brooklyn-based John Wray, chronicles trauma of a more personal kind: one day in the life of a schizophrenic boy, escaped from hospice care, on a self-imposed mission to save the planet by losing his virginity. A case worker and the boy's mother stay hot on his subterranean trail as he rides the New York City subway system, looking for a willing mate. The boy, who has a history of violence, has stopped taking his medication and poses a serious threat to himself and others.

Lowboy is an example of something increasingly rare: a successful novel by a writer willing to plunge himself into discomfort for the sake of his subject. Wray, who is set to visit Prague in June for the Prague Writers' Festival, told The Prague Post how Lowboy was conceived.

"An Australian friend of mine showed me a clipping, years ago, about a man who'd escaped from a mental institution in Sydney - a well-liked man, but with a history of violence - who'd gone off his meds not long before. The manhunt had a particular urgency, because it was estimated that the medication would be out of his system entirely within 48 hours. At the risk of seeming exploitative, the situation struck me immediately as ideal material for a novel," he said.

Lowboy
By John Wray
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009
258 pages
ISBN: 978-0-374-19416-1

The author is appearing at the Prague Writers' Festival June 6-10, www.pwf.cz

Wray then delved into numerous psychological texts to familiarize himself with the illness before he began crafting Lowboy's titular protagonist. His reading has paid off, as the novel - told from the point of view of the schizophrenic boy - unfolds with an uncanny lyricism that only gains power from the fact it is not always grounded in reality. The following episode takes place halfway through the novel, when the boy's medication has begun to wear off, lending a disturbing gravity to his every move:

"Once they'd passed the gate the voices got ambitious. Still a room away but closer now, more plaintive, tapping on the brittle wall between. If he whistled or hummed they dimmed but only slightly. Talking was better. What is there to talk about, he asked himself. There's got to be something. [?] All right, Emily, he said finally. Here it is. They went forward together, tottering like some half-assembled thing, and he told her what had happened at the school. [?] Even the voices held their breath and listened."

Once Wray had captured the niceties of his character, an equally confounding task remained: how to describe the stifling chaos of the serpentine New York subway system, a Dantean task for the 21st century. Wray described his decision to go underground, literally.

"There's something a little silly to me now about the fact that I wrote my first draft on the subway, like some kind of '70s method actor living on dried fish and hardtack to study the role of a pirate. It did have some unexpected advantages, though: no cell phone reception, no Internet and no office rent to pay. And, of course, I got a chance to observe a wide variety of interactions between people on the trains, although most of the time I had my headphones on and tried my best to ignore them," he said.

The subtle accuracy of Wray's descriptions attests to his dedication. The following passage from the novel's opening pages is just one example: "He got on board the train and laughed. Signs and tells were all around him. The floor was shivering and ticking beneath his feet and the bricktiled arches above the train beat the murmurings of the crowd into copper and aluminum foil. Every seat in the car had a person in it. Notes of music rang out as the doors closed behind him: C# first, then A. Sharp against both ears, like the tip of a pencil."

At the Prague Writers' Festival, Wray will take part in several discussions, a reading and a book signing. The festival marks a return to Prague after his visit in 1991.

"I'm hoping to be astonished by the changes to the city and delighted by them, and I have no fear of being disappointed," he said.

Stephan Delbos can be reached at
sdelbos@praguepost.com