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Christopher Barzak’s ‘Wonders of the Invisible World’ More to wonder about in YSU professor’s new novel
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
YOUNGSTOWN
Christopher Barzak again explores the themes of growing up and the supernatural in his new novel, “Wonders of the Invisible World,” which will be released Tuesday.
The Youngstown author achieved a new level of recognition for his previous novel, “One for Sorrow” (2007), which was adapted into the film “Jamie Marks Is Dead.” Directed by Carter Smith, the film was a finalist in the drama category at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.
Both “Sorrow” and “Wonders” are coming-of-age tales with a teen protagonist, and both toggle between the real and supernatural worlds. Both novels also are set in and around Youngstown.
Barzak is a Kinsman native and a writing professor at Youngstown State University. He will read from “Wonders” and sign copies of it at a book-release party at 7 p.m. Friday at Barnes and Noble, 381 U.S. route 224, Boardman.
The new novel focuses on a family living in Temperance, a fictional farming town in Northeast Ohio. The action moves to Youngstown, which is another parallel to “One for Sorrow.”
The family has a secret history that it keeps from its younger generation.
“The narrator, Aiden, who is 17, discovers pieces of information from his family past that charges him with motivation to uncover as much as he can,” said Barzak in a recent interview. “What he discovers is not just the secret history of his family. He also uncovers memories of himself that have been magically obscured from him in an attempt to protect him, but which probably endangered him.”
The novel, said Barzak, is ultimately about coming to terms with our family history and ourselves, and breaking away from that family although we are shaped by those same people.
The inspiration for all of Barzak’s stories stem from his youth, and explains why his protagonists are usually young men.
“It’s just what I liked to read when I was growing up,” he said. “I enjoyed a lot of books by Stephen King. I don’t write terribly dark fiction, but I like the interplay of writers who wrote in that vein when I was a kid.
“My stories involve ordinary people who are struggling with a conflict but with an overplay with the supernatural that parallels the conflicts they are encountering. It bounces back and forth between the two.”
Barzak said he enjoys a world that feels mysterious. “I enjoyed that feeling I got as a kid,” he said. “I think a lot of writers do that – write like the stories they fell in love with as a kid.”
The title of the novel is quite similar to that of a pamphlet written in 1693 by Cotton Mather. “The Wonders of the Invisible World” explained and defended Mather’s role in the Salem witch hunts in the Puritan colony of Massachusetts.
Barzak uses a quote from Mather’s work as an epigraph to his new novel.
“Wonders” is Barzak’s third novel; he also has written two short-story collections. His works often get categorized as Young Adult fiction because of their teen characters.
“I have lots of younger readers,” said Barzak. “My first two books were not listed as Young Adult, even though they are YA at heart. Teens started talking about them.”
The majority of his readers are between 15 and 30, said Barzak. “It’s a time when people are figuring out how to be an adult,” he said. “I don’t target [younger readers]. I just write what I am attracted to writing.”
Barzak noted that adults are also drawn to the coming-of-age themes.
Early reviews for “Wonders of the Invisible World” have been uniformly positive. Kirkus Reviews called it a page-turner. “That surprised me,” said Barzak. “Kirkus described it as ‘a captivating exploration of the power of place, family, memory and time itself,’ and I thought, ‘Great, this is exactly what I wanted it to be.’”
In another review, Scott Westerfield (author of “Uglies” and “Afterworlds”) called it “brilliant storytelling that unearths new intersections of love and magic.”
Barzak isn’t expecting “Wonders” also to be made into a movie, although he would welcome it if the opportunity should arise.
“It was so random, that first [movie],” he said. “It came out of the blue. I would love to see it happen again. I love to see my characters on the screen. But it’s out of my hands. Hopefully someone comes across it in the movie industry, the same as what happened with ‘One for Sorrow.’”
Having his novel made into a film was an extraordinary experience for Barzak, but it didn’t change his career in a major way.
“The film reached a small audience, but it’s a bigger audience than what you get from books,” he said. “As a result, I’ve gained a lot of new readers because of the movie. It boosted sales of ‘One for Sorrow’ and my other books, so it raised my profile to some degree, grew my audience.”
Published by Knopf Books, “Wonders of the Invisible World” will be sold at all major bookstores and online retailers.