The Instructions by Adam Levin

The Instructions by Adam Levin, 1030 pages.
This is a big, crazy book. It doesn't seem crazy when you're reading it, only in retrospect, the same way that all of the characters are totally believable when you are reading their stories, but then between sessions you start to doubt that any 10-year-old could talk, or plan, or think the way that Gurion ben Judah Maccabee does, or the act the way that Benji Nakamook does. Maybe Gurion is the Messiah, though. He's not really saying, or he's not really sure. But he does have several hundred middle-school-aged scholars from Hebrew schools all across the northwest Chicago suburbs willing to believe in him. And he does have all of the kids in the lockdown "cage" program at Aptakisic Middle School willing to join with him on the Side of Damage, protecting the downtrodden, and the Israelites. It is a wonderful read up until the end when it all . . . well, read it and find out, though it was, for me, a little hard to take, and hard to figure out exactly what happened to everyone. There is so much packed in this book, from critiques of slapslap and Marx Brothers' films, to wonderful moments with Philip Roth as a character. Gurion, Benji, Vincie Portite, Eliza June Watermark, and all of the rest are great characters, and this is a great book. I forsee brisk sales of "Side of Damage" and "We damage we" T-shirts among the cool kids.

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