The Slide

By Kyle Beachy

Book Overview

At once an offbeat love story, a moving portrait of a family in crisis, and a darkly funny American comedy, Kyle Beachy's arresting debut novel--written in prose that is swift, stunning, and sweet--heralds the arrival of a remarkable new voice in fiction. Potter Mays retreats immediately after college graduation to the safe house of his childhood home. Like clockwork each morning, his mother makes him eggs, lovingly fried into hollowed-out pieces of toast. His father, in the midst of a campaign to revitalize downtown St. Louis, promises to "poke around" for gainful employment for his son. Potter's best friend, Stuart--an "Independent Thought Contractor" working out of his parents' lavish pool house--is willing to serve as a kind of life coach, provided, of course, that Potter pays for his services all summer. However... Altogether elsewhere, Potter's (former? future?) girlfriend, Audrey, is backpacking around Europe with her beautiful bisexual traveling companion, Carmel. Potter was not invited, and getting a good night's sleep has recently become an issue for him. As enigmatic packages arrive from Audrey, the refuge of life at home soon proves illusory. Potter's parents are oddly never in the same room together, the neighbor girl is looking quite adult, and Stuart's much-needed counseling service is subcontracted to a third-party denizen of the pool house with an agenda all his own. And just what are those noises coming from the attic? Kyle Beachy has woven a uniquely affecting story of the long and hard, then quick and hard, struggle to grow up.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385341857
• ISBN13: 9780385341851
• Release Date: January 2009
• Publisher: Random House Group
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Clever, funny, easily relatable

The Slide was well worth the read. Kyle Beachy starts out with what seems like just a humorous story about figuring life out post-college, but then twists things just so slightly at the end for a powerful, emotional conclusion--without being overdone or maudlin. The first-person narrator has a great voice that is frequently making self-deprecating and "wink-wink" comments to the reader, which keep the story light as the plot moves along. Definitely worth checking out.

Great Debut Novel

The Slide is a terrific debut novel. A middle American coming-of-age story with a dark sense of humor, not unlike The Graduate for the 21st century. Beachy is an incredible sentence-level writer and this is a fast-paced page-turner of a read.

Loved it!

What a great read! Kyle Beachy has achieved something so amazing with this novel. I love his prose style--it's entirely unique, very bold, and wonderfully cynical. The Slide is a story of failed and failing relationships--between husband and wife, father and son, between friends, between lovers. Beachy's protagonist, Potter Mays, is a recent college grad caught in a moment of upheaval. Preoccupied by his dissolving love for his globe-trotting girlfriend, haunted by a dead brother he never really knew, uncertain of how to move on after college, Potter drifts purposelessly through the Missouri summertime making every mistake possible. His character is at once relatable, despicable, pathetic, and honest. Potter's struggle is a familiar one, but twisted and exaggerated to the point of tragicomedy. The Slide is impossible to put down--I loved it!

Hopeful, Tragic, Modern Coming of Age

Kyle Beachy's prose was so refreshing and I felt like Potter Mays was a perhaps slightly exaggerated version of a recent college grad. Approaching that hurdle of adulthood myself, I was so instantly drawn to Potter and invested in him that I couldn't stop reading. After finishing I felt a comforting sense of awareness about the world and future we're fast approaching.

Smart, funny and strange

Kyle Beachy creates a world that is maybe a half a dimension over from ordinary reality - in his St. Louis the people are smarter, the girls are prettier, and the drugs have better names - but Potter Mays is just as confused as anyone I knew when they left college with a degree in liberal arts degree. Not only is Potter confused about ambition and love, but he has to deal with both the ghost of his younger brother and a (alive) boy, Ian, whose scenes with Potter are a joy to read. Potter has a family missing a son, and Ian is a son missing a family, and the two strike up a strange and lovely friendship. This relationship - between a young man and a young boy - might be awkward in other hands, but in The Slide's heightened reality Ian is the perfect conscience Potter wishes he had. The book is funny, it's biting and satirical and pointed, yet it never loses its heart. Kyle Beachy manages to be earnest and honest and deeply sad when writing about home and family and finally, really growing up.