Write Naked

Publishers Weekly

Victor, the 16-year-old protagonist of this belletristic first novel, has gone to his uncle's cabin in the Vermont woods to try out an aphorism he's seen, "You have to be naked to write"; there he meets Rose Anna, a home-schooled free spirit and fellow writer who is also 16. The two continue to meet and write together; Rose Anna also lectures him on Wicca and the environment. Their conversations rarely have the feel of genuine dialogue, and their nostalgia for the '60s (when both their mothers lived on communes) gets redundant. Often Victor, while sympathetic, seems overly earnest, as when he feels overwhelmed by Rose Anna's writing and thinks, "I need a metaphor." Rose Anna, meanwhile, is too wise, passionate and free of self-consciousness to be a believable teen character. Her story about global warming takes away from the flow of the narrative, and readers are unlikely to share Victor's high opinion of it. Ages 14-up. (June)

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Children's Literature - Heidi Hauser Green

Inside the cover of this sensationally-titled teen novel is an engaging, heartfelt story about two unusual kindred souls. Victor is heading to his uncle's cabin in the woods one day when he instinctively stops at a yard sale. The seller notices his interest in an old typewriter and gives it to him, telling Victor that the heavy machine has a story in it and the boy should draw it out. Victor's imagination is immediately captured. He finds a way to get the typewriter to his uncle's cabin—the cabin is primarily Victor's refuge, since his uncle has moved out of town—and sets about writing. Under amusing circumstances which have something to do with the book's title, he meets the captivating Rose Anna. A homeschooled teen Victor's age who must care for her severely depressed mother, Rose Anna sees writing as a way to express her concern for the world. Peter Gould successfully explores the inner workings and emotional connections of these sensitive teens. While the issues Rose Anna and Victor explore in their lives are often serious, Gould manages to maintain a good pace and keep the story from being weighty. In spite of its title, this book would be a good choice for all but the most conservative collections. Reviewer: Heidi Hauser Green

Jane Kenyon

Victor is a kid who likes to fly under the radar. At sixteen he admits he is still in "mytrying- to-figure-it-all-out phase." When Victor finds an old typewriter at a garage sale, he's sure there is a story in it. Lugging the typewriter to an abandoned cabin in the Vermont woods, Victor begins his journey of self-discovery. With the old Royal acting as friend and talisman, Victor sets out to test the theory that you have to be "naked to write." A curly-haired nature lover, Rose Anna, and her dog Dash surprise Victor one day. He has been detected! Using her grandmother's gold-plated fountain pen, Rose Anna joins Victor in writing their way to a special friendship, determining the meaning of "writing naked," and experiencing the wonder of first love. Writing Naked is a thoughtful novel exploring the idea of how writing can be selfdefining. We hear Victor's voice as he narrates the novel, and we hear Rose Anna's story as she shares her writing with Victor. Reviewer: Jane Kenyon

School Library Journal

Gr 9 Up

Refreshingly lacking teen angst, Victor is a pensive, authentically innocent 16-year-old who seeks the isolated privacy of his family's Vermont cabin. He lugs an old Royal typewriter along with him and begins to write-in the buff-testing the idea that "you have to be naked to write." And it works; his words flow fast and smooth, until he spots a girl watching him, free-spirit Rose Anna. The teens meet at the cabin to write together, clothed and carefully respectful of one another, although Victor knows that Rose Anna also comes alone to "write naked." He is intrigued by her passion for nature and Wicca. Gould weaves a spell of nearly chaste sensuality, far more provocative than graphic sexuality, particularly in the emotionally charged yet controlled conclusion. Victor and Rose Anna are complex characters, coming to terms with the familial and personal forces shaping them into maturity. Despite minimal plot, the story holds readers' attention through their powerful character development and simmering romantic tension. Other aspects of the novel are less successful. The Vietnam vet who sells the teen the typewriter is overbearing as he holds forth on the immorality of war. Victor unflinchingly records his own flights of imagination, fleeting attention span, and faltering perceptions. In clumsy contrast, Rose Anna's story is a juvenile ecological fable of three newts traveling to a "summit meeting" on global warming. The didactic, condescending tone of her tale brings the exquisitely subtle intensity of the book to a screeching halt.-Joyce Adams Burner, Hillcrest Library, Prairie Village, KS

Kirkus Reviews

Nudity, first love and global warming mesh-sometimes awkwardly-in this novel, the author's second (after Burnt Toast, 1971). Seventeen-year-old Victor meets homeschooled, unconventional Rose Anna at his uncle's cabin in the Vermont woods. Both have mothers who were part of the Vermont commune movement and both have taken to heart the adage "You have to be naked to write." Victor has an old typewriter with which he chronicles their budding romance and the minutiae of his own life; Rose Anna prefers a fountain pen and homemade ink to script an earnest but pedantic allegory about global warming. Their blossoming romance and Victor's growing awareness of the world and of other people come across as genuinely sweet and sometimes funny. The message within Rose Anna's story, however, as well as her obsession with a tragic commune fire long ago, sadly dilute Victor's narrative and result in an uneven read. Still, it is refreshing to find teen characters who can be naked in a cabin together and still want to write. (Fiction. 14 & up)