Many of us know the name Markus Zusak because he's the author of The Book Thief, which remains one of my favorite reads to this day. But he's also written Getting the Girl, Underdogs and I Am The Messenger, which I picked up half out of curiosity, half out of nostalgia when the movie release of The Book Thief catapulted the book once again into the bestsellers.
Ed Kennedy is an underage cab driver living in the same rundown little town he's always inhabited. His life consists of playing cards with his three best friends, Marv, Ritchie and Audrey, and waiting for his dog the Doorman to die. It's not a very satisfying existence, but it's not too demanding either, so Ed sees no reason to do anything about it until one day he accidentally stops a bank robbery. The next thing he knows, Ed is receiving playing card aces in the mail with strange and troubling assignments on them. Each suite will test a different part of his character, force him to re-evaluate something about his life, until he can complete all four aces and finally find out who's behind these bizarre tasks.
For those of you who were hoping for another Book Thief-type tale of wartime love and suffering, I'm sorry to disappoint. But let me reassure you that the beautiful prose that shines in that novel also appears in I Am The Messenger. The sharp, visceral images that the author uses to communicate feelings or thoughts are staggering, and he uses them to communicate more clearly to the reader not only what Ed thinks and sees in the world around him, but how he actually perceives it. One of my favorite examples of this is Ed's relationship with his dog, the Doorman. He's an old, smelly dog who spends most of his time as a doorstop (hence his name), but Zusak gives him a distinct personality by telling us what Ed can see the Doorman thinking in his looks and his behaviors. Ed's interpretation of the Doorman's expressions and actions in italics, and anyone who has had a special pet in their life will recognize the wonderfully portrayed idea of communication between cross-species best friends.
Ed's journey through his different tasks is varied, each ace thematically different but all of them bringing Ed into contact with different sorts of people, all of whom need different things from him. It becomes clear that Ed's function is to care, that he is to be a messenger of interest and concern to his fellow human beings, but the reason why he was chosen, and why the subjects of his missions were chosen, remains unclear throughout the story. I admit that at the end when I found out what the mystery was all about, I was disappointed. It was clear to me that the intended message was that anyone can make a difference, that nobody's life is meaningless, but to my mind the symbology of the end indicated the opposite: that there wasn't necessarily any meaning in any of it. That didn't detract from the tasks that got Ed through though, and how they each influenced him, changed him into a new person.
I did have difficulty finding out exactly where the story was taking place, between the well-written vernacular and the terminology for things like French fries ("chips") and the foul language that gets tossed around by Ed and his friends. Eventually I settled on somewhere in Australia. Mentioning where they were would have allowed me to focus more on the puzzles of Ed's tasks, instead of always wondering in the back of my mind, "where IS he?" But the easygoing relationships that exist between Ed, Marv, Ritchie and Audrey, and the ways in which they change as Ed grows, are universal among young people.
I Am The Messenger is a strange and wonderful story about confronting stagnation in a person's life, about ripping open old wounds so that they can heal properly, and about forcing yourself to change things if you're not happy, because you do have the potential to be more. I would especially recommend this as a good read for male readers who like the idea of John Green's books but think they're a little too "girly." This and other Markus Zusak books are available at this very moment at your favorite local, independent bookstore. Stop in and pick one up on your way outside to read in the sunshine!
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