Pinkwater's Neddiad: awesome YA novel with ghosts, fat alien cops, shamans, circus animals, triplanes, swordfighting, etc

I've been catching up with a bunch of Daniel Pinkwater books lately, most recently The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization, his 2007 young adult novel that contains (in no particular order): circus animals, Pullman trains, sleight of hand, Navaho shaman, triplanes, the Grand Canyon, shoelaces, ghosts, cowboys, fat alien cops in grey station wagons, swordfighting, torture, rescue, a Roman coliseum, elder gods, and tar-soaked fossils.

The Neddiad concerns the cross-country migration of Neddie Wentworthstein, who one day mentions to his war-enriched shoelace-magnate father that he'd like to eat in the Brown Derby in Hollywood (because, hey, restaurant shaped like a hat!), prompting his father to realize that he, too, had always dreamt of dining in a hat. The family immediately moves to Los Angeles, taking the train, and Neddie loses the family in Arizona, meets a shaman, is given a holy relic, meets a cowboy and a ghost and a best friend, finds his way to Los Angeles, and saves the world.

So, it's your basic Daniel Pinkwater plot: hilarious, goofy, sweet, wildly imaginative, and filled with food and adventure. I loved every page. As Neil Gaiman writes in his blurb, "Pinkwater is the uniquest. And so are his books. Each uniquer than the last... A delight in oddness. A magic that's not like anyone else's."

He's so right. I do believe that Daniel Pinkwater is my favorite writer, living or dead.

The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization

• [ab5tract]

  Daniel Pinkwater is awesome. Thanks for the notice, Cory!

  I bought Borgel when I was just a little guy and its hard to tell whether that novel altered my consciousness as much as it seems likely to have. A psychedelic experience wrapped up in the trappings of an awesome YA novel must have had some effect, I’d wager.

• [celia]

  Even a bad Daniel Pinkwater beats no Daniel Pinkwater, but it was a little overly DP formulaic: strange boy makes strange friends, has a quest, helped by strange adults who may or may not be what they seem. I’d rather read the Snarkout Boys again. Or Lizard Music.

  At the same time, I realize that if this was the first Daniel Pinkwater I ever read, I probably would be convinced it was one of the greatest books in the history of books–I am simply spoiled because I’ve read them all already.

  I’m looking forward to reading the Yggyssey, though, in no small part because I think there need to be more books by him about girls, and I hope he did a good job with it.

• [Anonymous]

  Alan Mendelson, Boy from Mars was my favorite, especially since I read it out loud, twice, to my kids. But the Snarkout Boys books hold a special place in my heart, because those were my first Pinkwaters.

  But I always had the feeling that Pinkwater sits down, starts writing page 1, finishes a book at some later point — and never goes back to edit or rewrite a single page. All his books have a feeling of story lines that are dropped or appear out of nowhere. Of course, that’s a part of their charm — no Hollywood by-the-book dramatic arc rules for DP.

• [dwabyick]

  I agree. I really liked this book, but I’m partial to some of the earlier work. Probably just because I am old. However, I will plug The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death as one of his best works.

• [seanjjordan]

  My first Daniel Manus Pinkwater book I read as a child was, “The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death.” It was a strange choice, even in the early ’90s — a book that romanticized the hi-fi, James Dean, crappy cars, dying strip malls, werewolves and other cultural misfits. It remains one of my favorite books of all time, if for no other reason than the fact that it resonated with me, being a young misfit myself.

  From then on, I read every DMP book I could get my hands on. At the time, “The Hoboken Chicken Emergency” was very popular, but I didn’t think it was nearly as interesting as “Borgel” or “The Last Guru,” both of which I read at least a dozen times. To me, these books represent the purest form of fantasy — zany, outlandish material that has a foothold in reality, but which quickly ventures into the realm that only imagination can conceive of.

• [MadMolecule]

  I wrote a brief, positive review of one of his books on amazon.com once, about ten years ago. The following day, he sent me a thank-you e-mail.

• [gobo]

  The Neddiad’s wonderful, and while it has Pinkwater’s signature quirks all over the place, it’s got a refreshingly different feel than his classic 80s books like Lizard Music or Snarkout Boys. For one thing, instead of his beloved Hoboken, the bulk of the book takes place in late-40s Hollywood and somehow captures that sunny California atmosphere. But it still has all the creativity, imagination, and loving descriptions of food that his best books have.

• [igpajo]

  After reading Cory’s post about the Yggyssey, I checked out the audio book for The Neddiad which was read by Pinkwater himself. Loved every word. His narration and the visuals he described gave the reading an atmosphere that made me think of the movie “A Christmas Story.” I’m trying to get my 11 year old to check them out as I think he’s right at that age that Pinkwater seems to writing for. I’m dying to read or listen to The Yggyssey now.

  A big thanks to Cory for all the great book recommendations you drop in here. I’ve discovered some great books thanks to you.

• [bgaloot]

  Please tell me Neil Gaiman did not use the word uniquest.

• [Anonymous]

  Well, look…NEDDIAD was one of two breakthrough books for me. The other is LIZARD MUSIC, my first novel. LIZARD MUSIC because after being sort of intensely interested in figuring out how writing was done since childhood, it gave me evidence that I could possibly actually do it myself. NEDDIAD because almost 40 years later I suddenly felt that I was getting to a point where I could do it right. YGGYSSEY followed, which a lot of people have liked…it’s a kind of bridge or transition, or meal of leftovers from NEDDIAD, and it led to ADVENTURES OF A CAT-WHISKERED GIRL, (not published yet, but scheduled), which feels pretty strong to me. It’s interesting to read comments by readers because they are paying attention to books of mine from a completely different point of view. It’s like moths reviewing this year’s collection of woolen worsteds. You guys are looking for a book that reads right, and I am looking for a book that wrote right. When our enthusiasms convene–that is the best. Thanks, everybody for your interest, and please stick around–I feel confident that the new models, when unveiled, may prove satisfying.

  Daniel

• [Cory Doctorow]

  Daniel, it’s a positive delight to have you weigh in here! Welcome! Your editor’s sending me a copy of CAT-WHISKERED for a cover-quote and I can’t WAIT.

• [webmastered]

  Dumb-ass publisher notwithstanding, we’re currently serializing the audio version of Borgel at the Pinkwater Podcast, complete with the missing chapters.

• [Stefan Jones]

  Cory doesn’t mention that the Neddiad is quasi-autobiographical . . . at least, to the extent that the young D. Manus Pinkwater moved to L.A. from Chicago, went to military school, and saved the world from elder gods.

  I thought the Neddiad ended kind of abruptly, but it was a fun look at sunny and mobile post-war America.

  If you can find it, the read-by-Pinkwater audiobook of Borgel is insanely great. The dumb-ass publisher only bothered including the first half of the story, however, because the boxes they ordered only had room for one cassette.

• [Anonymous]

  You can read the Yggyssy, a sort of sequel to Nediad, online: http://www.theyggyssey.com/