"the bird is a raven" - by benjamin lebert

coming of age stories are often bittersweet. it is almost impossible to tell the stories of youth without nestling angst and confusion with love and mystery. "the bird is a raven," 24 year old benjamin lebert's sophomore novel, somehow tells a radically different tale, a passage into adulthood marred by nothing but existentialist contempt. it is a brutal story within a story that lacks the filter of wisdom and the lens of experience, but none the less, reveals compelling truth.

lebert, as gifted a young author as you may read today, explores a fetching narrative revolving around two young characters, henry and paul, who meet in a sleeper car on a train bound for berlin. while traveling, henry tells the story of a complicated triangular friendship that he is running away from. henry's candor is unsettling, and at times, unbelievable. intertwined in the telling are conversations between henry and paul revolving around the philosophic, touching on everything from god, the passage of time, sex, hatred, sickness and loneliness. their thoughts are developed and well expressed, but tend to fall too easily into the mix. it would be a nice turn if some of those thoughts were shown to the reader instead of penned.

being so young gives lebert the advantage of actually having his hand on the subject material. it is one thing when a forty year old man writes of youth. it is quite another when the voice is currently in the thick of it. lebert shows incredible promise. his narrative style while not entirely original, is fresh, and his characters do invite attention. at one point in the story, harry talks about how as a kid, he always imagined that his life was being followed by interested parties. that the ups and downs of his life were being tracked by people who hoped for the best for him and felt bruised by his disappointments, much like the readers of a book. lebert's characters achieve that sentiment in "the bird is a raven."

get "the bird is a raven" at powell's