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A review by sampayn3
Noggin by John Corey Whaley
5.0
Only in enduring life, and collecting a diverse bank of memories, can we better comprehend the world and identify ourselves. It is the past that indicates our flaws and how to avoid repeating our mistakes; it is how we distinguish ourselves, understand love, friendship, family, struggles and the intricacy of society and the wider universe. Without these recollections, individualism would be eradicated and we would fall under a bland, frail and indifferent existence. Yet is it possible to renounce the past, and all that was understood, in favour of a fresh reality? If an aspect of our world were to suddenly disappear, and thus the past appear no more than a faint dream, are we to defy all that has changed or embrace the opportunity; the survival; the second chance? John Corey Whaley’s second novel, Noggin, is a science-fiction meets bittersweet-contemporary story of a young man whose former life, and the majority of his body, is dead. Travis Coates wakes up to a familiar world and yet he is an alien: not only due to the scar around his neck, that is a permanent mark of his transplant, but as everything he once loved and knew, all that he was, has vanished. As Travis struggles to identity himself in this bizarre new reality, five years ahead of his previous consciousness, he learns that whilst change is unavoidable, holding onto the past is a harrowing, burdensome strain.
Travis Coates was dying of leukaemia. In a last attempt to save himself, or perhaps a refusal to die at all, he decided to participate in a scientific trial that could save his life. Of course, nobody knew when or even if it would happen. Five years later, after having head “chopped off and shoved into a freezer in Denver, Colorado”, Travis is very much alive again. Waking up with his head attached to a another body, Travis is the second person in history to undergo, and survive, a human head transplant. Whilst there is scientific triumph and intrigue surrounding such a feat, the still sixteen-year-old young man returns to find himself alienated, unnatural and confused by the changes in himself and those that have suddenly descended around him. First he must adapt to the physical changes; his height, his skin tone and the muscular, toned body that is athletically capable as he never was before. But this is trivial compared with the true troubles: his best friend refuses to acknowledge the secret he shared with Travis moments before he died, and his parents have removed all signs of his prior existence. Worst of all, his teenage romance and first love, Cate, is now twenty-one, a college student and engaged to someone else. In the midst of Travis’ desperate scramble to realign his life and locate some normality, Whaley tells a timeless and original coming-of-age tale where the main character is an assimilation of Holden Caulfield and Frankenstein. This is not a tragic cancer sob story of survival or of loss. The immediately attractive character voice, one that is satirical and blunt, echoes the sound of your own cynical stream of consciousness. Despite the heaviness and intimacy of Travis’ unusual circumstance, and the ethical dissection of scientific intrusions, Noggin is plentiful with light-hearted puns and comical head witticisms.
To dissect a human head, preserve the bodiless form and later reattach it to another, is a surreal premise from which the rest of the piece stems. It begins with the immediate fame following the scientific success: the paparazzi that wait outside his school and follow him around town, the boxes of fan mail that remain unopened, the screaming women, the detractors who claim he’s Satanic, the fanatics who believe he is a resurrection of Jesus. Everyone wants to see the infamous scar on his neck - the scar and reminder that will never leave poor Travis alone. However the surgery scars extend far beyond his physical form, wounding him on a metaphysical level. For Travis, the last five years never even happened, or at least he has no knowledge of them. It is as if his life only ended minutes ago and now he is conscious of a terrifying, weird surrounding that is familiar and yet totally transformed. As he explores what has become of his old life, the main character grasps the abnormal nature of his resurrection and hence identifies his deepest scar: “I thought maybe a day was coming when I'd stop constantly worrying about how to live. Maybe at some point I'd just start living, no questions asked.” In suffering such life-defining insecurity, Noggin warns the medical industry of potential overbearing experimentation. Head transplant - whilst a intriguing premise - is not ethical fair on either the victim who is awoken or those who surround that individual’s life. He’s not only lost a body, but his teenage romance has engaged to a new man, his best friend is concealing an identity and his home life is disconnected.
Travis does not struggle with one identity alone. In fact, he grapples with the conflict of three opposing identities: his past self, the history of the body donor, Jeremy Pratt, and the new self that will eventually detach from the past. Identification is the overarching theme of the novel, with the central complications ensuing around the loss and separation from his prior self. Indeed, it is heartbreaking to perceive how Travis’ reality has evolved without him, as nobody ever believed that he would live again. Especially not within such a short space of time. The final moments preceding his death, where secrets were shared, eulogies and promises parted, were meant to die with Travis. But as the audience is escorted through these fragile memories, they are invited to debate whether Travis should suppress the past or whether he has a responsibility to remember? Whaley articulates society’s inability to accept someone who was dead, gone, no longer, and then suddenly alive once more. The promises that were given in the fleeting moments of his past life; the lover he expected to wait for him, however long it may take for him to be resurrected, are forgotten. Even more confounding is the process of trying to explain to Travis that, unfortunately, his life is not what it once was. Here, the author imitates the self-discovery themes in other young-adult literature; where the main character is restrained as his world revolves, unstoppable and utterly unsympathetic, around him.
The novel is saturated with a sense of nostalgia. Travis reflects longingly on the life he had beforehand while also illustrating the importance of accepting what is the present, and moving forward, rather than living in the past. During his evocation of this theme, the author enables Noggin to stand apart and yet remain incredibly relatable. Every member of humanity can embrace and find a correlation between their own doubts and the doubts expressed here. An obsession with analysing the past - reflecting on what has been, rather than could be - is not only prevalent in teenage years but is consistent throughout adulthood. Whaley understands the deficiencies of life and strongly exhibits how perfection, or what we believe we deserve, is rarely possible. It is through compromise that the author proposes a solution, “We all get lots of people. And maybe we don’t always get to have them the exact way we want them, but if we can figure out a way to compromise, you know, then we can keep them all.” As Travis’ schemes to regain his past become progressively futile, desperate and bittersweet to endure, chiefly in reigniting his love with Cate, he comes to this solution. For the first time, he acknowledges the selfish aspect of his actions and how he reopened wounds that his friends and family believed were healed. In disregarding these actions, Travis Coates comes to be thankful for simply being alive: “All that time I'd spent worrying about why I'm here and how I'm supposed to live had kept me from remembering that Jeremy Pratt will never be back. His people will never have him again. He is Jeremy Pratt who died and stayed dead and will never get a second chance.”
Whaley straddles teenage romance, self-discovery and that funny-sad branch of literature that battles unusual or tragic circumstances. Although Noggin is not a soppy love story, nor a cancer eulogy, it is brimming with substance. It is a piece of well-honed literature that is light and, above all, alive. Echoing John Green’s notable form, the writing here has the ability to choke the audience with emotional sentiments and traumatic poignance. Travis Coates’ voice, and thus the author’s writing style, is a distinguished combination of creepiness and yet light-hearted hilarity that mimics the teenage psyche. He remembers the “beeps and footsteps, the tearing plastic, spinning wheels on carts… these were the sounds I died to, and these were the one’s that welcomed me back” as the spectacle of his life reaches the audience with resounding clarity. The memory of the night he died; where his friends staged a years worth of holidays for him to experience before he died, is a sensory peak in the writing. Aside from the storyline very occasionally lapse into repetition or dryness, the thematic significance and characterisation provide startling vibrance: whether we can let go of the past, of things we know to be true in order to play the naive and protect other’s from pain.
Noggin begins at the end of one life, and concludes with the beginning of another. The transition from between the two is a comical and melancholy tale of self-discovery and persistence, where Travis Coates, resurrected head-transplantee, is unable to coordinate himself in his new-found reality. In John Corey Whaley’s authentic illustration, finding comfort in one’s own skin has never appeared as arduous or peculiar. However, as outlandish as the novel may be on the surface, Noggin has a wonderful resonance. It not only investigates the alienation from the world around an individual, but literal alienation from who that individual is at their core - from their very body. Travis Coates defied the natural cycle of his body and, after dying from leukaemia five years ago, found himself conscious and breathing again. Yet, despite the undeniable beat of his new heart, Travis is not living yet. It may take a month, or a year, or a decade, or perhaps he never will, but the only way for Travis to live again would be to let his old self die - his identity, his past, everything that made him Travis - allowing the new Travis to flourish.
Travis Coates was dying of leukaemia. In a last attempt to save himself, or perhaps a refusal to die at all, he decided to participate in a scientific trial that could save his life. Of course, nobody knew when or even if it would happen. Five years later, after having head “chopped off and shoved into a freezer in Denver, Colorado”, Travis is very much alive again. Waking up with his head attached to a another body, Travis is the second person in history to undergo, and survive, a human head transplant. Whilst there is scientific triumph and intrigue surrounding such a feat, the still sixteen-year-old young man returns to find himself alienated, unnatural and confused by the changes in himself and those that have suddenly descended around him. First he must adapt to the physical changes; his height, his skin tone and the muscular, toned body that is athletically capable as he never was before. But this is trivial compared with the true troubles: his best friend refuses to acknowledge the secret he shared with Travis moments before he died, and his parents have removed all signs of his prior existence. Worst of all, his teenage romance and first love, Cate, is now twenty-one, a college student and engaged to someone else. In the midst of Travis’ desperate scramble to realign his life and locate some normality, Whaley tells a timeless and original coming-of-age tale where the main character is an assimilation of Holden Caulfield and Frankenstein. This is not a tragic cancer sob story of survival or of loss. The immediately attractive character voice, one that is satirical and blunt, echoes the sound of your own cynical stream of consciousness. Despite the heaviness and intimacy of Travis’ unusual circumstance, and the ethical dissection of scientific intrusions, Noggin is plentiful with light-hearted puns and comical head witticisms.
To dissect a human head, preserve the bodiless form and later reattach it to another, is a surreal premise from which the rest of the piece stems. It begins with the immediate fame following the scientific success: the paparazzi that wait outside his school and follow him around town, the boxes of fan mail that remain unopened, the screaming women, the detractors who claim he’s Satanic, the fanatics who believe he is a resurrection of Jesus. Everyone wants to see the infamous scar on his neck - the scar and reminder that will never leave poor Travis alone. However the surgery scars extend far beyond his physical form, wounding him on a metaphysical level. For Travis, the last five years never even happened, or at least he has no knowledge of them. It is as if his life only ended minutes ago and now he is conscious of a terrifying, weird surrounding that is familiar and yet totally transformed. As he explores what has become of his old life, the main character grasps the abnormal nature of his resurrection and hence identifies his deepest scar: “I thought maybe a day was coming when I'd stop constantly worrying about how to live. Maybe at some point I'd just start living, no questions asked.” In suffering such life-defining insecurity, Noggin warns the medical industry of potential overbearing experimentation. Head transplant - whilst a intriguing premise - is not ethical fair on either the victim who is awoken or those who surround that individual’s life. He’s not only lost a body, but his teenage romance has engaged to a new man, his best friend is concealing an identity and his home life is disconnected.
Travis does not struggle with one identity alone. In fact, he grapples with the conflict of three opposing identities: his past self, the history of the body donor, Jeremy Pratt, and the new self that will eventually detach from the past. Identification is the overarching theme of the novel, with the central complications ensuing around the loss and separation from his prior self. Indeed, it is heartbreaking to perceive how Travis’ reality has evolved without him, as nobody ever believed that he would live again. Especially not within such a short space of time. The final moments preceding his death, where secrets were shared, eulogies and promises parted, were meant to die with Travis. But as the audience is escorted through these fragile memories, they are invited to debate whether Travis should suppress the past or whether he has a responsibility to remember? Whaley articulates society’s inability to accept someone who was dead, gone, no longer, and then suddenly alive once more. The promises that were given in the fleeting moments of his past life; the lover he expected to wait for him, however long it may take for him to be resurrected, are forgotten. Even more confounding is the process of trying to explain to Travis that, unfortunately, his life is not what it once was. Here, the author imitates the self-discovery themes in other young-adult literature; where the main character is restrained as his world revolves, unstoppable and utterly unsympathetic, around him.
The novel is saturated with a sense of nostalgia. Travis reflects longingly on the life he had beforehand while also illustrating the importance of accepting what is the present, and moving forward, rather than living in the past. During his evocation of this theme, the author enables Noggin to stand apart and yet remain incredibly relatable. Every member of humanity can embrace and find a correlation between their own doubts and the doubts expressed here. An obsession with analysing the past - reflecting on what has been, rather than could be - is not only prevalent in teenage years but is consistent throughout adulthood. Whaley understands the deficiencies of life and strongly exhibits how perfection, or what we believe we deserve, is rarely possible. It is through compromise that the author proposes a solution, “We all get lots of people. And maybe we don’t always get to have them the exact way we want them, but if we can figure out a way to compromise, you know, then we can keep them all.” As Travis’ schemes to regain his past become progressively futile, desperate and bittersweet to endure, chiefly in reigniting his love with Cate, he comes to this solution. For the first time, he acknowledges the selfish aspect of his actions and how he reopened wounds that his friends and family believed were healed. In disregarding these actions, Travis Coates comes to be thankful for simply being alive: “All that time I'd spent worrying about why I'm here and how I'm supposed to live had kept me from remembering that Jeremy Pratt will never be back. His people will never have him again. He is Jeremy Pratt who died and stayed dead and will never get a second chance.”
Whaley straddles teenage romance, self-discovery and that funny-sad branch of literature that battles unusual or tragic circumstances. Although Noggin is not a soppy love story, nor a cancer eulogy, it is brimming with substance. It is a piece of well-honed literature that is light and, above all, alive. Echoing John Green’s notable form, the writing here has the ability to choke the audience with emotional sentiments and traumatic poignance. Travis Coates’ voice, and thus the author’s writing style, is a distinguished combination of creepiness and yet light-hearted hilarity that mimics the teenage psyche. He remembers the “beeps and footsteps, the tearing plastic, spinning wheels on carts… these were the sounds I died to, and these were the one’s that welcomed me back” as the spectacle of his life reaches the audience with resounding clarity. The memory of the night he died; where his friends staged a years worth of holidays for him to experience before he died, is a sensory peak in the writing. Aside from the storyline very occasionally lapse into repetition or dryness, the thematic significance and characterisation provide startling vibrance: whether we can let go of the past, of things we know to be true in order to play the naive and protect other’s from pain.
Noggin begins at the end of one life, and concludes with the beginning of another. The transition from between the two is a comical and melancholy tale of self-discovery and persistence, where Travis Coates, resurrected head-transplantee, is unable to coordinate himself in his new-found reality. In John Corey Whaley’s authentic illustration, finding comfort in one’s own skin has never appeared as arduous or peculiar. However, as outlandish as the novel may be on the surface, Noggin has a wonderful resonance. It not only investigates the alienation from the world around an individual, but literal alienation from who that individual is at their core - from their very body. Travis Coates defied the natural cycle of his body and, after dying from leukaemia five years ago, found himself conscious and breathing again. Yet, despite the undeniable beat of his new heart, Travis is not living yet. It may take a month, or a year, or a decade, or perhaps he never will, but the only way for Travis to live again would be to let his old self die - his identity, his past, everything that made him Travis - allowing the new Travis to flourish.