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Title: Vacation
Score:
Author: Jeremy C. Shipp
Rating: Not available
Hits: 106

Review of Vacation

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Comments for Vacation

• Posted on 2009-09-05
  "...this could be my coffin, or this could be my cocoon."
  
  VACATION was my first foray into Bizarro Fiction (but certainly won't be the last). I had read many of Jeremy's short stories, and after enjoying them, decided to try his full length work. I'm not sure what, if any, my expectations were going in, but VACATION exceeded them all.
  
  Descriptors that come to mind are strange, thought provoking, dark, uplifting, inspirational. But that's just me trying to describe an immensely difficult to describe book.
  
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• Posted on 2009-07-06
  Read this Book. Seriously.
  
  [...]
  
  "At turns surreal and frighteningly real, Vacation challenges the reader to deny that they are in fact living through the same drug-addled haze that Bernard Johnson has been until the time he goes on his own Vacation. Utopia disintegrates into dystopia, and Johnson is thrust into a dark world where life is worthless, minds become the puppets of guerrilla warlords, and the grand illusion of the world he knew is ground to dust."
  
  
  
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• Posted on 2009-05-23
  A reality bending amusement park...
  
  Bernard Johnson embarks on a journey of self-discovery through a vessel of infinite imagination. Surreal landscapes morph at the blink of an eye and the speed of thought. Bernard will question his existence, his sanity, and the many quirky characters he encounters on this psychedelic trip, and struggle to understand if it's all real or fantasy. But do pay attention... Vacation is embedded with a sublime message relating to the state of Bernard's psyche and its connection to the nightmarish design of a dystopian society. Vacation is a reality-bending amusement park. Enjoy the ride!
  
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• Posted on 2009-04-11
  Vacation
  
  Vacation was my first foray into the bizarro fiction genre. I wasn't sure what to expect when starting this book, but soon realized that all expectations simply fly out the window anyway. Bernard Johnson, a 35-year-old English teacher decides (in an early-mid-life-crisis kind of way) to spend the next year of his life "finding himself" during a government sponsored world Vacation. On this Vacation, Bernie meets up with a beautiful woman who used to be one of his male students; is visited by his dead sister; and finds himself dumped into an alternate reality where the ultimate battle for truth and freedom is unfolding. Hold on for the ride of your life, the twists and turns never end and constantly leave the reader having to reshuffle what they think is real and what is a dream. This expertly crafted story manages to be both phenomenally deep and highly entertaining all at the same time.
  
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• Posted on 2009-02-06
  Shipp's imagination is an interesting place to Vacation
  
  Jeremy Shipp's weird debut novel, Vacation, is a genre that I seldom visit. Through most of the first sixteen chapters I kept telling myself that I wasn't liking Shipp's convoluted and confusing story. But as Shipp himself professes: "humans have an uncanny ability to deny and forget". By the last portion of the book, I was finally "getting it", and the path the story took to get there, was well worth it. Two hours after I finished reading Vacation, I was able to put it in perspective for myself.
  
  Vacation is a metaphor for the state of the world in which we live, and reflects any number of current world tragedies, from the atrocities in Sudan to the systematic tainting of baby food in China. Three types of people populate our world: the Tics (a brilliant acronym)-- those blood and soul-sucking people and corporations that have little regard what they take from others while they feed their own bloated self-serving lifestyles; the Meek -- victims of circumstance, geography, economics or choice; and the Garden -- those who see the greater truth and seek to change the world even at great risk to themselves.
  
  Most of us don't even know which category we're in.
  
  Reflected in his own pre-natal tragedy, Shipp's protagonist figures out his role, then rejects it, finding redemption in a courage he didn't even know he possessed.
  
  Shipp's writing style is quirky and fun, and his repetitive use of themes and phrases a singular sort of brilliance. His imagination is an interesting place to Vacation, but I wouldn't want to live there.
  
  C.A.Wulff
  
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