Daredevils

February 1, 2016
Set during the transformative 1970s, Vestal’s (Godforsaken, Idaho) vibrant, compelling first novel features a restless protagonist: Loretta, 15, who is resistant to her strict Mormon upbringing near Short Creek, Ariz., and is caught sneaking out to see her secret boyfriend, Bradshaw. Fearing that her “soul is in peril,” Loretta’s father marries her off to a devout fundamentalist and polygamist, Dean Harder, to become another mother to his ever-expanding brood of seven children. Her new role as sister wife and seminary student is repulsive to her, as she shares Dean with doting, God-fearing first wife Ruth, who is haunted by memories of when federal agents raided their encampment when she was young. Once the family relocates from rural Arizona to Idaho, Dean’s plucky teenage nephew Jason, an Evel Knievel devotee, recognizes Loretta as a girl who “doesn’t belong,” becomes enamored with her, and morphs into the ideal escape she needs, with a stash of gold along for kicks. The book is stocked with vivid characters, such as Jason’s best friend, Boyd, and Evel Knievel himself. Vestal has created a riveting, rollicking thrill ride about throwing caution to the wind. Agent: Renée Zuckerbrot, Renée Zuckerbrot Literary Agency.

Starred review from February 1, 2016
The 1970s, that most unjustly derided of decades, is evoked with intimate detail in this coming-of-age story set in an American West that is expansive with possibility yet constrained in imagination. It's July, 1974. While President Richard Nixon is a month away from resigning in disgrace, 15-year-old Loretta dreams of a life beyond the limits imposed by her rigidly pious Mormon family in the dusty Arizona hinterlands. But just when she's poised to break away with her secret "Gentile" boyfriend, Bradshaw, Loretta's transgressions are found out, and her parents, believing her "soul [to be] in peril," force her to marry Dean Harder, a fundamentalist and polygamist with an already plentiful family. Later that same auspicious summer, Dean's teenage nephew Jason sneaks away from church with his Mormon grandpa to join the rabble watching Evel Knievel's attempt to vault the Snake River Canyon in a rocket-powered "skycycle." The jump fails, but Knievel's audacity makes a resounding impression on Jason, whose path intersects with Loretta's a year later in Idaho. Sensing in each other the same yearning to leap out of their respective cul-de-sacs of quiet desperation, they, along with Jason's best friend, Boyd, a comparably restive if more outgoing Native American teen, set off in a LeBaron sedan for Nevada and points south for release from their lives--and, though Loretta doesn't tell her fellow travelers, for Dean's secret stash of gold. Vestal, who established a reputation for depicting this physical and psychic terrain in his short-story collection, Godforsaken Idaho (2013), intersperses these incidents with funny, persuasively rendered monologues by Evel Knievel himself, speaking throughout as the wounded, embittered, and caustically eternal voice of anyone whose yearning to defy his or her own fate is thwarted as much by his or her own hubris as by fate itself. Vestal also leaves you with the funny feeling that this may not be the last we see of these thrill-seeking kids--or their would-be spoilsports. This debut novel captures the flailings and flights of hapless dreamers with prose that throbs like the strings of an electric bass playing its sad heart out in a near-desolate landscape.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 1, 2016

When 15-year-old Loretta's parents catch her sneaking out at night in 1974 Arizona, they accept Dean Harder's offer to make her his second wife. In their reclusive fundamentalist Mormon community, sister wives help men fulfill the sacred principle of plural marriage. Meanwhile in Idaho, Dean's teenage nephew, Jason, works his more mainstream Mormon family's dairy farm and sneaks off with his grandpa to see Evel Knievel attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon in a steam-powered rocket. Both Loretta and Jason yearn for different lives, but it isn't until the whole family gathers after Grandpa's death that the two teens dare to escape together. Richly descriptive writing and third-person storytelling at first seem to create distance between the characters and readers, and chapters told from Knievel's egotistical first-person point of view are jarring at first. Also, the "ick" factor in the plot includes more than just underage polygamy. There is a violent jackrabbit drive, for example, that Dean organizes with other men to rid Grandpa's farm of the pests that are ruining his crops (they use fire to drive the rabbits into a chute and then bash them to death as they exit). Ultimately, however, the writing is beautiful and the many narrative layers form a subtle and satisfying exploration of courage, lunacy, righteousness, lust, and more. VERDICT Teens will appreciate this fascinating historical novel for the suspense and complexity of Loretta's and Jason's responses to situations created by the adults in their lives.-Hope Baugh, Carmel Clay Public Library, Carmel, IN

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 1, 2016
As Vestal, winner of the PEN Robert W. Bingham Prize, paints it in his magnificent debut of youthful yearning, growing up Mormon in the American West in the mid-1970s was like living in a bubble. For 15-year-old Loretta, there is no TV, no pop music, and no contact with the gentile (non-Mormon) world. Except for the nights she sneaks out to meet an older boy who plies her with alcohol. When she's caught, her stern father turns her over to Brother Dean Harder as his second wife. Harder, as his Dickensian name suggests, is even more rigid than her parents. Ah, but she's a feisty one, and hungers for a glamorous future complete with Tussy lipstick and pink Mustang convertibles. No matter how improbable that dream might be, Loretta is constantly sweeping the landscape of her life for the one road that will deliver her to it. Eventually she decides that Dean's 17-year-old, Evel Knievelworshipping nephew, Jason, will fit the bill. So, armed with life skills gleaned from the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and Knievel himselfwho makes cameo appearancesLoretta, Jason, and a friend, doggedly making one bad decision after another, embark on a wild ride to meet their destiny. And what a glorious journey it is.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

March 15, 2016

The go-for-broke spirit of legendary daredevil Evel Knievel is with two Mormon teenagers as they try to break out of their rigidly structured lives in this debut novel, set in the 1970s, from award-winning short-story writer Vestal (Godforsaken Idaho). After her father catches her sneaking out to meet her boyfriend, 15-year-old Loretta is hastily married off to Dean Harder, a polygamist whose strict adherence to Mormon doctrine turns off even his extended family outside of Arizona. Meanwhile, Dean's nephew Jason, facing another summer of soul-crushing work in the Idaho desert, longs to escape the drudgery of his small town, sneaking away with his grandfather to watch his idol Knievel try (and fail) to scale the Snake River Canyon. When Loretta's family moves next door to Jason's, the two conspire to split town in Jason's LeBaron with his best friend Boyd, in search of adventure (and Dean's gold, still in Arizona). Along the way, the three bright-eyed teens meet someone who looks and talks a lot like the great stunt performer himself. VERDICT Vestal's narrative is punctuated with imagined monologs from Knievel, raucous addresses that at first seem random but come by the thrilling conclusion to enrich the scope of this heartfelt and finely observed debut. [See Prepub Alert, 10/12/15.]--Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L., NJ

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2015

In this debut novel from Vestal, who won the 2014 PEN Robert W. Bingham Prize for his story collection, Godforsaken Idaho, 15-year-old Loretta is married off to fundamentalist (and already wed) Dean Harder after she's caught sneaking out to meet a lad who's not Mormon. Then Loretta catches the eye of Harder's teenage nephew Jason, and the two dare to escape from their closed-in world.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.