I went more than four years between reading books signed by the author (according to my book reading spreadsheet…#nerdalert).  Winning a contest put an end to that streak.

Last fall, my friend Brooke interviewed Erika Mitchell, author of “Pwned” and ran a contest with the winner receiving a copy of the book.  The story at one point involves the main character ducking the FBI to fly to South Korea in order to take part in a computer game tournament.  Brooke wanted to know how we would skip the country if we had to.  Here’s what I said:

“First, I would put on a clown costume with full makeup. Not sure yet if I’m going sad clown or happy clown, but that may be a spur of the moment choice. The costume would not only obscure my face to lower the chances that someone recognizes me from a flyer, but would also give me a sort of natural cover since people are either indifferent to clowns or really terrified of them. Whatever the case, they’re taking at most a quick peek, then looking away.

“Next, I climb on a moped and make for one of the borders, which would be decided by whichever I was closest to at the time. I think the plan works for either Mexico or Canada, and really, who wants to be mopeding for longer than they have to? The moped is so small the border inspection would be very quick, thus getting me out of the country that much faster.

“In this age of social media and people taking pics/video of everything, the last thing a border guard wants is an extensive flow of posts showing them frisking a clown, so I would definitely get only a cursory examination. Plus as someone who has been described as able to come up with “extremely credible nonsense,” I dare the guards to challenge me to take off the face makeup and see how long I can argue it’s necessary to wear on religious grounds. Long story short, clown = no questions, no heroes, quick exit.”

A few weeks later, an autographed copy of the book showed up in the mail, though it took me a few months to get around to actually reading it.  The story is definitely a thriller, the kind you hate having to pause when real life interferes.  It didn’t hurt that the main character was a writer during the day and spent nights playing video games.  I gueeeess I could relate to a guy like that.  Of course he also happens to spend some time with a super hot gamer chick, which isn’t as close to my current life, but anything’s possible, right?

Another way to get me to like your book?  Drop a reference to the show Arrested Development on page 3:

“Sean closed his eyes and rubbing them with the knuckles of one hand before taking a look at the messages from his teammates.
Serenity: gg newbs wp
BOBLOBLAW: TYVM
ProfPlum: I thought you were a goner, Captain.  That was pretty gosu.”

(For those lame enough to be unfamiliar with the show, Bob Loblaw is a lawyer played by Scott Baio who makes a few appearances.  To enjoy this name, read it as quickly as possible.)

I told her about her success on Twitter (she’s @parsingnonsense), and she replied that “Arrested Development references make just about EVERYTHING better.”  So true.

I also had one slight moment of feeling sorry for the antagonist in the story, Norman.  Strained by the stresses of his world potentially crashing down around him, he has trouble sleeping.

“His mind, overworked, overvexed, overstressed, spent time in a comfortable limbo that was less restful than sleep but better than nothing.”

When I used to work a crazy split schedule of roughly 4 a.m. – noon Wed/Thurs then back again at 9 p.m. Friday night for a 12-hour overnight shift, I spent most of Friday in that state.  I wanted to sleep before work, but flipping that abruptly does not play well with the human body clock.  Most Fridays I felt lucky if I relaxed in a dark room for two hours watching a movie.

But that’s where my sympathy for Norman ended.  Much better to be the benevolent nerd than the evil one.  If you want a little more about the story itself, I’ll let Brooke handle that.

I run across coincidences in my reading life all the time, usually involving an author referencing something I just saw in another form or was just talking about with someone else.

A few weeks ago, my friend Brooke wrote about her latest read on her blog, and in the process randomly mentioned Jeffrey Eugenides.  That was only a few days after I began reading his Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Middlesex.”

This is one of those stories that was so engrossing, I barely paused to highlight anything.  The narrator, Cal, describes his family’s multi-generational journey from a small town in Greece, to struggling immigrants in America, to thriving in the heydays of Detroit before bad luck and bad decisions changed everything.  Amid all of that, Cal grew up as Callie, the product of a gene mutation and an incompetent doctor who never noticed what made her different from other girls.  Callie didn’t find out until she was 16, and shifted into a new life as Cal.

Growing up is hard enough when you’re “normal,” and slowly learning the detailed history of Cal’s differences that were never his fault is heartbreaking.  It’s a drawn-out “woooooooow, that’s tough.”  Yet no matter what you look like, how popular you were in school or what your family life was like growing up, there’s so much in his story that relates.  That process of learning about yourself, absorbing disappointments and finding your way happens to everyone, and that’s the hook that I think makes it so easy to put yourself in Cal’s shoes.

One of the few pages I did flag had this great section about one of Callie’s high school friends, who seemed completely disinterested in the classroom, but came alive as an actress.

“Talent is a kind of intelligence,” he writes.  “Far away from her cigarettes and her snobbishness, her cliquish friends, her atrocious spelling.  This was what she was good at: appearing before people.  Stepping out and standing there and speaking.  She was just beginning to realize it then.  What I was witnessing was a self discovering the self it could be.”

I think Eugenides captures so well that feeling of looking on as someone you care about finds their “thing.”  You see them take steps toward something that could be great, and as they begin to succeed, the whole process feeds on itself, growing exponentially as ambition feeds back on confidence.

A friend recommended this book to me and described it as amazing, but heartbreaking.  I would agree with that assessment, but would add in the incredible power of seeing someone overcome those circumstances.  Not every story is happy, but neither is it sad.  There’s a spectrum to life, and Cal’s story encompasses many of its parts.