Vintage: A Ghost Story
The nameless protagonist of Vintage is not your typical teenager. He doesn’t live with his parents, he doesn’t go to school, and he doesn’t like sugary foods. Instead, he’s a fragile gay boy, who recently overcame a suicide attempt and is dealing with a sexy ghost, a requisite female best friend, and the romantic overtures of said best friend’s brother.
Vintage begins as a chilling gay gothic novel, but unfolds into a delicate rendering of one boy’s coming-of-age. Steve Berman weaves an engaging supernatural mystery, grounded in the authentic concerns of adolescence and propelled by the handsome but possibly deadly ghost of Josh - a football player killed in an accident in 1957.
"What harm could it be to let him haunt me a while?" the narrator asks, drawn both to Josh’s physical perfection and his sad, lonely countenance, as he meets his ghostly admirer on an empty road. At the same time, he is concerned with the goings-on of his best friend Trace, and her little brother Mike, both of whom provide the real emotional resonance of Berman’s tale. They may not be as flashy or exotic as a cute Varsity ghost who makes thrilling, chilling love, but they lend the story its grounding reality and resonance.
While the narrator finds himself intrigued by his beautiful ghost, he also grows gradually aware of the real-life presence of Mike. He is torn, however, with his initial infatuation with the sexy spirit. "I realized he would always stay that way, eternally beautiful. How could I not envy such a fate?" he asks. This romanticized notion of death is a tell-tale sign of youth, and Berman sustains such innocence and wonder throughout the work.
As in a lot of young adult literature, the kids here dabble (for the most part harmlessly) in drinking and smoking, but have it more together than all of the represented parental figures. Vintage also touches on the fears of many a gay boy just coming-of-age - both in Josh’s tragic coming out in the 50’s, and the narrator’s own difficulties and fears in coming out to his family.
Berman wisely allows the supernatural aspects to take second seat to the real-life interactions between the narrator and his friends, and in their teenage concerns he captures the ache, longing, and frustration that makes growing up so bitterly sweet. To Berman’s credit, the dead don’t have the answers either, as evidenced in a terrifying night-time encounter with the tormented, restless souls of a cemetery. By the end of the tale, death is no longer such a gorgeously intriguing visage, and each of the characters has gained a new appreciation for life. Like its ghosts, Vintage may haunt you after its tale is told, holding on with its pitch-perfect depiction of adolescent hope and angst, and the ultimate triumph of love, and life, over death.
by Steve Berman
Publisher: Haworth Positronic Press
