Huge Review a novel by James W. Fuerst

Huge



Last year’s surprise debut novel by writer James W. Fuerst was the book Huge. The novel takes place in the 1980s in New Jersey, between an area that represents the projects, and the other area across the woods that represent the rich, suburban area. Pretty much a poor boy story in a “gotta be someplace better than here” situation.
Huge is actually the ambiguous nickname of Eugene Smalls, and with a name like that; we can sort of understand off the bat why this kid has the makings of a passive-aggressive lunatic.
Huge is your generic Holden Caulfield-style character, a bitchy preteen at that point in his life where things are becoming confusing, life is starting to have less and less of a meaning for his voided childhood, and the unfortunate metamorphosis into a man. The book does do Catcher in the Rye some gratitude by mentioning Caulfield in a deep comparison to Huge in a very awkward situation between he and his sister during an scene in the bathroom.
Sure there’s more symbolism than Jung’s psychological writings can explain, but this kid is a Freudian’s nightmare, and may have pushed any sensible person to believe I n hopeless endeavors.
Huge starts out as a kid that is riding to a retirement home to meet his grandmother. His grandmother of course is a sly woman that plays possum with her marbles, in a symbolic way of seniority and youth disobeying the system in a generation gap. I see it more like the grandmother represents the origins of Huge’s mischievous mannerisms, and eggs him on, while Huge secretly loves that she does this, despite the self-fulfilling prophecy of his delinquency having punishable consequences.
Huge is sadly the author’s whipping boy, never catching a break, always having conspiracies the world is out to change him, and in a way, it is, considering the bullshit parenting of the single mom.
Sure, if I had a child like Huge, I’m sure I’d want to beat the holy hell of sense into him, but let’s be honest, he’s deemed a loss cause to almost everyone but his fading grandmother.
The grandmother that he calls Toots, points out that the retirement home has had a run of vandalism over the past few weeks, and it is up to Huge to figure out just who desecrated the home’s sign, by writing RETARTED over Shady Oaks Retirement Home. Now Huge has been raised on a bellyful of detective novels from some of the greats, and he is obsessed with them. His grandmother pays him in advance with ten dollars, a lot more than you’d think to a 12 year old, and it gives you a sense of nostalgia just how ten dollars seems like a world of money, and it cost a dime to play Pac-Man. Taking the money, Huge promises to bring back information on the vandal that ruined the sign of the retirement home, and wants to personally punish the culprit that would pick on the poor old folks.
We find out about Huge, and his faithful friend, Thrash, a stuffed frog that seems to symbolize the primitive, violent, nonsensical part of Huge’s life. Huge is this kid that plays out like a ne’r-do-well, arrogant in-between aged child, who uses his Cruiser as a means for transportation throughout his misadventures. Starting out the case by searching for clues, he goes and starts to blame a gang of “taggers” (A bunch of kids that spray paint graffiti about the Palisades and Northern Jersey area.) This lead, has Huge and Thrash head to meet a stoner that happens to be Huge’s sister’s boyfriend (on-and-off) as a lead suspect, and his crew of taggers. This in-turn leads to be another attempt for Huge to indirectly seek social acceptance from his higher-up peers. Of course, Huge is a tough kid, but unfortunately he is also seen as a kid that’s insane, has mentally been ravaged from an impoverished life, and has a form of OCD and bipolar depression.
To psychoanalyze him any further, one would assume he has just teenage angst when all those chemicals are meshing around in his brain, making everything confusing and depressing.
Eugene Smalls is iconic, a seemingly familiar character that almost anyone can relate to at one point in his or her life. Growing up in the 1980s Northern New Jersey area is difficult, but we get a feeling of a very primal, very do-or-die sort of setting. Through a teenager’s eyes, we feel the invincibility, and the life-or-death situation all at once; we get this feeling that everything can come crashing down at any moment.
Going through situations like sexual frustration, disownment, being cast out by everyone, and that isolation that creates insipidness, Huge is a diverse character that functions on all engines constantly. A grave misfortune to his mother, a constant pain in the ass to his sister, forcing her to have no life in order to watch out for him, we at a moment’s glance see that Huge is not functioning on all cylinders, and we watch slowly as he begins to mature, and the detachments from his former childhood into his teenage years.
All over one summer it’s amazing to imagine a kid go from working out every morning through routine conditioning, fighting to get on a football team, and promising to beat the holy hell out of whoever desecrated a retirement home’s sign, to becoming a tween kid that is learning to transcend his former aggressions, and leaving behind a stuffed animal companion that symbolizes the loss of hope we all feel, and being the comforting, ticking conscience that always makes us want to do the bad thing.
Huge does find out so much in this amazing novel, but what does he find more in puppy love with a girl he had a crush on forever, that just wasn’t able to happen until this great epiphany happens. We start off with a mystery novel, but end with a teenage diversion into the heart of what really matters, that the best years, the adventures we once had, are all behind us after age eighteen. We find that we made things serious, that we had something grand as kids, because there was no serious responsibility that the primal youth we had turns into the mimicking of adulthood we all transpired to have in our early teens. This is a novel of self-redemption, and seeking to gain a responsibility so young that now most that are adults wish we could give back for one more year of childhood.
In a way, if you delve deep into this story, which has more depth than seen at a first glance, you see that past the foul language, which becomes a symbol of defiance and freedom in-itself, you see a screaming soul that is tortured by his self-deprecation, teeming at the rims with a hint of forgiveness. Perhaps Huge is here to teach us that there may not always be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but at least there’s not pot full of shit there either.
If you would like to delve more into this novel, I do highly suggest it, despite it being more of a flashier updated version of Salinger’s classic, but remember this: if it’s all been done before, at least this time it’s done well. Furest’s novel demands some praise, especially for a first novel, sometimes a difficult thing to do is hit it right in all the best places the first swing at bat, but hopefully this novel will be a testament for things to come. A writer should never stop writing, especially when they can go the distance with such a touching novel.
Huge is a character that we all relate to, whether we are twelve years old now, and begging for a parent to recognize that they’re no longer a child, or a parent of an in-between ager that sees the frustrations of growing up, or even some twenty-something that gets a little laugh at what they once were like, this book is for almost anyone that’s ever lived past age thirteen.
This mystery/comedy/coming-to-age tale is what every summer list needs. Although it’s a year or so old, if you haven’t read it yet, no summertime is better than now, so I do reco0mmend this novel, and I do believe that if you are an avid summer reader, it is the perfect novel for those sunny and rainy days. Huge by James W. Fuerst, a high recommendation by yours truly.

Thank you for reading the Malacast Editorial, please feel free to follow me on twitter.com @mcasteditorial, and do check back every once-in-awhile for updates to the blog itself. Have a great time, and enjoy the summer!