Question by Ralph: Anyone read Vision Quest by Terry Davis?
This is a great “young adult” novel (if you think the cursing is ok). My question is what style do you think Davis was trying to write in and over-all did you like it?
Please ONLY ANSWER if yor have read it.
Best answer:
Answer by mank
Yes, indeed, I have read Vision Quest by Terry Davis, and have often recommended it to others. In fact, when it was first published I reviewed it for a teacher’s journal. That’s been a long time. I can’t put my hand on a copy of the book nor do I have time to look up my review. So I won’t be able to give you a very detailed response.
What style was he writing in? That’s a good question, a curious one. As I remember, on the surface it imitates a hard-nosed realistic style, determined to show what high-school sports are really like, what first sex, first love, is really like, what it’s really like to live the life of a–Ok, I’ll use your term–“lost soul.”
But beneath the surface, I think a “romantic” style impinged on this account of growing up–NOT school-girl “romantic,” or Danielle-Steele “romantic,” but the real romanticism of, say, a Keats or Thoreau or Whitman (negative capability). Maybe “insightful” would be a better term than “romantic.”
The elements of the plot that I remember fitting in with this style were the other-worldly aspect of training for wrestling, his relationship with his artist/lover, the influence of the English teacher, and especially some allusion to Native American “visionary” experience. The title itself, especially the use of the medieval word, “quest,” from the very beginning points the reader toward an “insightful” or “soulful” style.
[If I can find my review, I’ll get back with more specific details. I appreciate your reminding me of the book. I wonder if Terry Davis continued as a writer. I don’t know of anything else he’s written.
OK. I just found his website. See below. Interesting. His influence on Chris Crutcher is obvious. In his foreword to the new edition of VQ,
Crutcher describes it as a “tough, funny, gritty, wise tale,” “transcending the backdrop of the high school wrestling scene.”
I have always thought that the author whose style
Davis’s most resembled was Evan Hunter, when he wrote under that name, especially in the novel Last Summer (1968).]
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