Write Naked

by Peter Gould

Sixteen-year-old Victor, a thoughtful loner who tries to live his life ?under the radar, ? wants to test out the saying ?You have to be naked to write.' When he sneaks off with an old Royal typewriter to his uncle's cabin deep in the Vermont woods and strips off his clothes, he expects Thoreau-like solitude. What he gets is something else'both funny and, as his high school English teacher likes to say, ?transformative.' For he discovers a face in...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374384835
• ISBN13: 9780374384838
• Release Date: May 2008
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 247 Pages
• Weight: 0.87 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.5"
• Age Range: 14 to 18 years
• Grade Range: Grade 9 to Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

An intimate "The Alchemist"

I read spent all day Sunday reading this book in a way I haven't done since I was a teenager. For me Write Naked has a feeling very similar to that of The Alchemist, except so much more intimate and familiar--full of Vermont, and of those most treasured feelings of youth. It was an absolute pleasure to read and, even putting aside my personal regional bias, a damn good book. I found the story very well paced and sensually engaging (that is, it engaged my sensory imagination fully). I was swept right into the curious and savoring tone at the beginning and then later found myself racing through the words in the climactic moments (or wanting to race). The book has excellent composition in terms of varying the intensity and complexity of pace and plot--like a great dance performance, mixing athletic movement and heavy numbers of dancers with simplicity, stillness, solo, duet... It was really a lovely read. Congratulations to the author!

Enchantment in the Very Real World

This is a book not to be missed. I kept thinking as I read, this is a book for young adults but I can't put it down. The world of Hobbits has that effect. Harry Potter does. But those are very different books. Write Naked is a simple love story about a very real boy and girl coming of age in a very real Vermont town. I live there. I'm in love. So I can vouch for the reality of it all. Well, to tell the truth, I came of age ages ago, but that is my point. This is a book full of enchantment and full of insight and so full of deep reality that it will enthrall young adults and anyone who is still alive to the mystery of our ever evolving and endangered world. Have you ever found a special place away from the world of everyday, a secret garden, a cave leading to the Earth's depths (and maybe a troll or two). Kipling, who lived and wrote many of his best books in Brattleboro, knew all about the lure of such places. Victor's cabin is like that, a real place, a hideout deep in the woods where he can be out of the public's sight and mind, "below the radar," where he can write naked. What does that mean? Well, use your imagination. Victor does. He thinks a lot. And he shares his imagination, his thoughts, and his cabin in the woods with his new friend, Anna Rose. He writes on an old Royal typewriter. She writes with a real fountain pen. These are real tools, but like the magical wardrobe or Alice's rabbit hole, they lead us to discover the real world behind reality. I don't want to spoil it for you, because this is such a fun and very funny story, but "Write Naked" is profound. Ouch, I said it. But, please, don't be put off, scared. Peter Gould has a lot to say, at all levels, and yet, as one would expect from one of the great mimes of our time, he speaks with a minimum of words and a maximum of charm. The implications of the book are very serious, but the love and delight keep shining, like foxfire. Ok, it is a book about love and loss and hope and tenderness, new love and family, learning at many levels, and the discovery of intimacy. Just imagine all of that brought to life with a gesture and a smile. You might guess that "young adults" will take all this for its surface pleasures, missing the messages. I think not. Knowing several of them (and remembering my own "coming of age"), I am certain that this is a book that will entice and be revealing to readers of all ages. It's not a boy's book, not a girl's book. It is a wonderfully human book. Whether you are 12 or 82, in Manhattan or Stinson Beach, starting on page one you will be at home in Victor's woods. I loved this novel, every page of it. It is a book I want to share and yet keep and read again.

A Magical Mystery Tour de Force

Usually, it takes five pages - sometimes as many as ten - before I know for sure that I'm going to fall in love with a book. But in the case of "Write Naked", I was only a page-and-a-half in when I fell head over heels - upon discovering that this is not just the story of a boy becoming enchanted with a girl (and vice-versa). The boy is also entranced with a typewriter. A "really old" Royal..."like a little word factory that's actually still in business, not boarded up like the old factories down in town. And it's noisy like factories used to be, with thumping metal...and the chime that goes off at the end of every line.." I could go on and on quoting Peter Gould bringing just this one character - the typewriter - to life in the mind of Victor, his quixotic, brainy, empathic, nostalgic, wistful, witty, totally delightful and unforgettable teenage protagonist. Victor, you see, has a tendency to "do what Miss Roth my English teacher calls `personification'", a trait he shares with the bewitching Rose Anna, the girl of his dreams. And it does seem as if he's dreamed her into being at first. But what starts out as a magical mystery tour of Victor's and Rose Anna's imaginations and anything-but-everyday lives quickly travels into territory that's all too real (our endangered environment, the legacy of Vietnam...). As they write their way - he with his typewriter, she with her grandmother's golden fountain pen - deeper and deeper into communion with the universe and with each other, we meet one adroitly drawn character after another (Gould has an amazing ear for dialogue and eye for the tell-all quirk.). Among my favorites: Victor's little sister, Claire ("She's always wearing her soccer clothes...She sheds bits of dried grass wherever she goes") and (from Rose Anna's fertile pen) a trio of very highly evolved - and involved - newts named Oona, Amoss, and Solomon Andrew. And my favorite line? "Grownups always bring along more stuff than they need." That's what Victor thinks as he observes Rose Anna's dad bumbling around in the dark with a flashlight when there's a perfectly good full moon to see by! Readers who are themselves coming of age will be captivated by this story (or stories - because Rose Anna's newt tale could be a book - or movie! - in itself). But this is definitely a book for all ages - and for the ages.

A great summer read!

A terrific summer read! You won't soon forget Victor and Anna Rose, two smart young characters. Victor is a thoughtful young man suddenly drawn to writing after acquiring an old Royal typewriter. Anna Rose is an independent home-schooled girl and an accomplished animal tracker keenly in tune with the environment. She, too, is a budding writer. When Anna Rose spies Victor typing away in a log cabin, the coming-of-age mystery really takes off. They are a delightful pair grappling with serious issues with refreshing openness and honesty. Despite the somewhat racy title (a reference from a book written on a local commune where Victor's parents once lived), the book is innocent and exciting. Gould may be at his best capturing the thoughts of Victor, a young man suddenly awakened to the "heat" of his first infatuation. In his acknowledgments, Gould thanks the many teens he has worked with as a youth theater director. He clearly listened. His captures the glorious internal turmoil of a first love. Anna Rose deals with her own issues - personal and global - partly by writing an intriguing fanciful story that Gould intertwines with Victor's narrative. Very clever. Great for anyone age 13 and older. Even those much older will feel inspired.

Richie's Picks: WRITE NAKED

" 'Victor?' "Oh my god. "How does she know my name? "You know how when you're playing hide-and-seek, you hear your name called, and you can tell by the angle of the sound that it's aimed right at you, they found out right where you are, no matter how good you thought your hiding place was? " 'Are you gonna come down, or should I come up?' "My mind races. Wait a minute; are these the only two possible choices? Surely there must be more, like, couldn't i just lie still and pretend i'm not here? Maybe she would miraculously not come up the ladder, just do whatever it is she came here to do, take as long as she needs, i wouldn't watch, and then she would leave? Or, better still, she and her dog could head back down the trail right now. Or: she could shut her eyes and let me slip out of the cabin. Dog shut his eyes too. None of these seems actually reasonable, though, so i have to admit she has pretty much summed up the options available to both of us at the moment. It's on me. i have to answer. Still flat on my back but trying to sound casual, mature: " 'i guess i'll come down.' " How does the teenager named by his ex-hippie mother in honor of the martyred Chilean folk singer end up in such a position? Actually, he has been making like Thoreau and heading for the deep woods near his Vermont home. Taking advantage of his uncle's empty cabin in the middle of nowhere, Victor is testing out the admonition found in one of his mom's old books from her commune days that, "You have to be naked to write." He is also trying to stay under the radar (That's why the lower-case "i."), by employing the old Royal typewriter which has fortuitously come into his possession: "Don't get me wrong. i like computers. There's not much i haven't tried on a computer. i've done digital editing. i download some music. i like to check out webcams, i've played most of the games some of my school friends have. i've done some stuff i wish i hadn't. "But it's hard to shake the feeling that someone in there is watching me, tracking what i'm doing, writing, or thinking, 24/7. i know they do that. And even when i'm not online, just typing on a computer, i still feel connected to that whole world of plastic, electric circuitry, global corporations, shopping, advertising, pollution. "So if i go way off the grid and punch these antique keys up in a cabin somewhere, i'll be connected, but it'll be a whole different world -- a world that never went away -- of iron and steel, mechanical type, printer's ink, paper, silence, the woods, water running in a stream." Victor thinks nobody is watching him. But he is wrong. Rose Anna, the wonderful teen who interrupts his writing process and then comes to be the most important part of that process is a home-schooled daughter of another communal graduate. Victor's and Rose Anna's moms, in fact, have some vital history in common. "A salamander scurries into flame to be destroyed. Imaginary creatures are trapped in birth on celluloid." -- Genesi