by Maria Staiano-Daniels
Daily Lobo
I hate it when people use the phrase "coming-of-age tale." Often they use it to describe stories of self-absorbed, adolescent whining.
With this in mind, Andy Bilger's novel, For the Angels are Dead, is a wonderful example of the genre.
The story follows Addison, a middle-class, American high school student, on what, in coming-of-age-tale speak, would probably be called a journey of self-discovery. This translates to a heck of a lot of drinking, drugs and partying in Mexico. Not surprisingly, Addison gets involved with a drug trafficker. In a drug deal gone wrong, Addison's best friend Luke is shot.
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The book gets started slowly, and spends too much time charting Addison's internal monologues. It straddles an uncomfortable divide - not exciting enough to be a mindless action thriller, but not nearly deep enough to be an introspective, philosophical work.
Somewhere along the line of the story, the chronology jumps to some point in the future where Addison is fleeing through the country with an old friend. The way Addison got from Point A - botched drug deal - to Point B - fleeing with Sean - is unclear and extremely confusing.
The novel, of course, includes a token romance between Addison and Laura. The reasons these two come together partake more of chance than fate. Addison constantly wonders what the beautiful, kind Laura could see in him, and, honestly, so does the reader.
There is so little palpable chemistry between Addison and Laura that, it is no surprise when he cheats on her with her cousin and feels no guilt.
The other relationships in the novel are just as sketchy. Addison and Luke start out as near strangers, and somehow end up as virtual brothers. The reader has to take it on faith that this transformation occurred, because it never happens on paper.
The characters are flat. The reader is always limited by Addison's shallow perspective. Sadly, though, Addison is completely wrapped up in his own problems and moans about them page after page, even he never becomes a real, fully-rounded character.
Bilger's depiction of Addison is, if anything, too realistic. He captures perfectly the shallow, enervated interior life of the average teenager. He even channels a melodramatic, high-school writing style, quite apparent in this quotation from the second chapter: "A good example of this or maybe a dismally bad example of this is what started my downward spiral to the deep despairing depths of Dante's Inferno."
Perhaps all this shallowness is some kind of commentary about American life, which lulls us with so much material prosperity that we lose our souls without noticing.
This commentary could be effective, but unfortunately, Bilger can't seem to evoke any more emotion from the reader than from his emotionally stunted protagonist.
That said, For the Angels are Dead wasn't a total loss. There was a certain rough-hewn charm to the author's style, which was sincere, if nothing else. Still, all that was felt for Addison was a slight pity mixed with mild contempt, and that is not enough to keep readers interested for 277 pages.
