The writer’s debut novel interrogates grief and masculinity through a gut-wrenching tale of an all-consuming love
It is a hot American summer in the early 2000s. Theron, the protagonist of August Thompson’s debut novel, Anyone’s Ghost, just touched down in New Hampshire but has no real place he has to be. After leaving the West Coast, where he lives with his mom during the school year, Theron is apprehensive about staying all summer with his estranged father. Yet, during these sweltering New England weeks, an unexpected attraction festers. On his first day working at Hardwick’s, the local hardware store, fifteen-year-old Theron is immediately drawn to seventeen-year-old Jake, who has “Jesus length” hair and blue eyes that “look as if they were backlit.” Jake’s connection with Theron is what grounds these opening pages, ultimately allowing for Thompson’s exploration of grief, masculinity, and all-consuming love. Because of the intensity and spontaneity of their bond, it is easy to wonder what Theron’s summer would look like if he had never met Jake amidst the aisles of Hardwick’s. Maybe he would spend the days anticipating the nights when the world becomes a blur of drinking and dancing, or maybe he would find himself holding a cigarette to a stranger’s lips, thinking about all the people he wants to kiss but shouldn’t. But as Theron spends more and more time in Jake’s beat up car, speeding down the freeway after far too many drinks, listening to song after song, it becomes clear that these brief weeks will become more than echo—they will score the rest of his life.
The novel is told in retrospect. From the very first line, we learn that Jake died in a car crash. And so, in many ways, the writing is both an ode to a love that was not diminished by time—and also an elegy. Thompson proves that this kind of unrelenting nostalgia can be dynamic and even startlingly sensual. “I was cautious about grazing against the saccharine, the weepy, the cheap,” the author tells me over email. “But the novel is written from the vantage of grief—how could anyone not be nostalgic for all that was when there is no longer the option of what will be?”
Ironically, it is the knowledge of Jake’s death that propels the novel forward. Because we are aware that Jake’s time is limited, any scene he appears in is urgent; especially the ones where he and Theron intersect. But Thompson is not just interested in the physical effects of Jake’s recklessness. The boys’ summer together culminates in a car crash that leaves Theron as obsessed with Jake as he is oblivious to the psychological turmoil Jake will inevitably cause to his life. While Theron’s injuries are minor, the accident takes place right after Jake explains how he plans to move back to Texas with money he’d stolen from the hardware store—the emotional impact is huge. The novel picks up several years later during the throes of Hurricane Sandy when Jake and Theron reunite as adults, Jake living in Texas and Theron in New York. And on one of these stormy October nights, there is another car crash, leaving them both in a state of frenzied excitement and hysteria. Although this car crash is more lighthearted than the last, it still serves as a physical manifestation of emotional events, this time highlighting the fervor that sustains their friendship. But no matter the weather, the place, or the time, there is a tenderness throughout these pages.
“There are times the characters struggle with expressing how they feel, their love thrums with passion. Thompson is not afraid of that emotional intensity—rather, he revels in its tension.”
In one scene towards the beginning of the novel, Theron listens as Jake talks to him about his parents, the way “he feels stuck with them, and all the things that made them.” Jake senses that Theron, also the child of divorced parents, needs the conversation to pivot and explains “that the good part about getting older is that you get to choose, at some point, how much of other people you have to take on.” This moment not only emphasizes the vulnerability that exists between the boys but also foreshadows how Theron will continue to “take on” so much of Jake, even after years have passed. The night before Jake arrives to visit him in New York, Theron fights with his partner, Lou, with whom he is in an open relationship, after he suggests she go back to her apartment at three in the morning so he can ready the space for his past crush. Lou is initially jealous of Theron’s relationship with Jake, but ultimately, she is the one who provides Theron with the support and stability Jake lacks. When Jake dies in the final car crash of the book, Lou even encourages Theron to drive to the funeral in Dallas, where he agrees to scatter Jake’s ashes back in New Hampshire.
But despite how Jake disrupted Theron’s life, there is something hopeful about it all—how even after Jake is no longer physically present, their lives still intertwine. “Masculinity is being examined with the precision and skepticism and disgust it deserves in the broader culture,” Thompson explains. “But I wanted to explore the ways masculinity, particularly fraternity, is beautiful.” While there is no doubt that there are many moments throughout the novel where men care and look out for each other, Anyone’s Ghost is also aware of the ways its characters are socialized. When Theron first meets Jake, he notices that Jake nods towards him in the way men do before “they say hello to each other and certainly before I love you.” Inside the hardware store, Theron learns Jake is not interested in talking about anything intimate, “anything that might let the conversation slip from sizing up and shooting the shit into real talk—” the phrase Theron and his friends use when discussing something vulnerable. This oscillation between the beauty and isolation of masculinity is what makes this narrative so compelling. There are times the characters struggle with expressing how they feel, their love thrums with passion. Thompson is not afraid of that emotional intensity—rather, he revels in its tension.
Anyone’s Ghost establishes Thompson as a master of writing toward persistent nostalgia—it reverberates throughout the book in every kiss, every nod, every car crash leading up to the fateful one; a music all its own. Like The National song the novel is named after, Thompson explores the beauties and perils of loving a person who is not physically or emotionally present—to such an extent that you feel as though you are haunting them. It is easy to relate to this kind of reminiscing. Maybe you are walking through the city streets or driving down a highway or sitting at a dimly lit bar, and you hear a melody that reminds you of a period of your life that has long passed. And suddenly, you are transported to another year, a different country, an alternate time replaying a moment whose impact you once didn’t understand—but beget closer to grasping by the time the chorus hits. It is this feeling that Thompson elicits. His prose suggests that it isn’t even until the song ends, fades into the background, that you realize you would do anything to live it again.
