Static

by Eric Laster

Overview

When Curtis Brooks starts receiving phone calls from his older brother Wilt, who’s been dead a week, he’s sure it’s to help him find evidence that will lead to a murderer’s arrest. But Wilt claims he wasn’t murdered; his calling, meant to help him adjust, is standard protocol for newly deceased at the Aftermart—a kind of inescapable, ever-expanding Walmart filled with discontinued products.

Wilt’s death ruled a homicide, Curtis embarks on a dangerous plan to find the killer, which soon has him scheming against a billionaire and floundering toward love with his brother’s ex-girlfriend Suzy, all while struggling through high school and his single mom’s poor choices.

Why does Wilt help Curtis win over Suzy, even as he organizes a rebellion at the Aftermart? Who’d wanted him dead? Curtis risks his life to answer these questions, in the process forging a bond with his brother unlike any they’ve ever had.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780991272938
Publisher:	Automatic Publishing
Publication date:	04/19/2016
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	14 - 12 Years

About the Author

A New Yorker by birth, Eric Laster lives in Los Angeles, where he pens fiction and provides strategic writing services to select clients. After a successful stint as a ghostwriter, Eric re-launched under his own name with the middle-grade novel Welfy Q. Deederhoth: Meat Purveyor, World Savior. Whenever he’s not scribing, he records punk rock and presses it to vinyl.

Editorial Reviews

07/01/2016
Gr 10 Up—Curtis Brooks's brother, Wilt, had only been dead for a week before he started calling. Curtis believes the calls are happening so that he can solve Wilt's murder, but Wilt insists that he is just calling as part of his afterlife therapy. The cops agree with Curtis, however, when a strange device is found attached to the car Wilt was driving the night he crashed. The narrator goes on a search for the truth that will lead him into dangerous territory with a creepy billionaire, a crooked landlord, and even Wilt's ex-girlfriend Suzy, who may be a suspect. Along with Curtis's mother's strange reaction to Wilt's death, a hipster school counselor, and his own burgeoning feelings for Suzy, it's no wonder that Curtis is on medication. This coming-of-age novel suffers from a lack of focus. The story works best when it sticks to one genre. The work is most interesting when Curtis is dealing with his family and personal issues, especially Wilt and Suzy. The murder mystery is fairly compelling as well. The plot goes off the rails when it features Wilt's experiences in the Aftermart—the place people go when they die. That concept feels contrived, and the result is an enjoyable, if mixed, novel. VERDICT Despite its meandering and unfocused plot, this is a good, quirky read that will find an audience with many teens.—Erik Knapp, Davis Library, Plano, TX

School Library Journal

2016-02-02
Curtis receives phone calls from his recently deceased older brother that make him suspect his death may not have been accidental. Most effective in this unusual and unpredictable paranormal mystery is Curtis and Wilt's poignant family back story, which includes a messy divorce and Curtis' ADHD and depression diagnoses. As Wilt attempts to acclimate to his new reality in the Aftermart, an endless, Walmart-like store filled with antiquated goods, Curtis puzzles out a host of strange clues—including a wad of money their mother discovered in Wilt's possession shortly before he died. This leads him into a shady underworld of illegal doings, in which he loses his virginity along the way. While Curtis' sarcastic first-person tone can be very funny, one subplot that relies in part on framing various cultures as other for humor isn't so successful. Three teens evidently (and unrealistically suddenly) adopted by Curtis' mother, from Namibia, Cambodia, and India, respectively, exist solely as awkward background characters, incessantly cleaning the apartment, seemingly there for comic relief and as plot device for Curtis' awakening. (Curtis never describes his own ethnicity and provides no culturally specific narrative clues.) The posthumous bond formed between the brothers is touching and the mystery a genuine surprise, but too much of the humor falls flat, unnecessarily distancing readers from the tale.(Paranormal mystery. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews