Leave Myself Behind

By Bart Yates

“Noah’s voice is more than just honest or original; it’s real.” --The Plain Dealer

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO NOAH YORK:

“Anybody who tells you he doesn’t have mixed feelings about his mother is either stupid or a liar.”

“Real life seldom makes me cry. The only thing that gets to me is the occasional Kodak commercial.”

“Sometimes I feel like Michelangelo, chiseling away at all the crap until nothing is left but the exquisite thing in the middle that no one else sees until it’s uncovered for them.”

“Anyway…”  

Meet seventeen-year-old Noah York, the hilariously profane, searingly honest, completely engaging narrator of Bart Yates’s astonishing debut novel. With a mouth like a truck driver and eyes that see through the lies of the world, Noah is heading into a life that’s only getting more complicated by the day.

His dead father is fading into a snapshot memory. His mother, the famous psycho-poet, has relocated them from Chicago to a rural New England town that looks like an advertisement for small-town America—a bad advertisement. He can’t seem to start a sentence without using the “f” word. And now, the very house he lives in is coming apart at the seams—literally—torn down bit by bit as he and his mother renovate the old Victorian. But deep within the walls lie secrets from a previous life—mason jars stuffed with bits of clothing, scraps of writing, old photographs—disturbing clues to the mysterious existence of a woman who disappeared decades before. While his mother grows more obsessed and unsettled by the discovery of these homemade reliquaries, Noah fights his own troubling obsession with the boy next door, the enigmatic J.D. It is J.D. who begins to quietly anchor Noah to his new life. J.D., who is hiding terrible, haunting pain behind an easy smile and a carefree attitude.

Part Portnoy, part Holden Caulfield, never less than truthful, and always fully human, Noah York is a touching and unforgettable character. His story is one of hope and heartbreak, love and redemption, of holding on to old wounds when new skin is what’s needed, and of the power of growing up whole once every secret has been set free.

“Noah’s blunt, funny and dead-on narrative will lend this memorable tale of
young-but-cynical love a fresh resonance with readers of all ages, gay or straight, male or female.” --Brian Malloy, author of The Year of Ice

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 1, 2004
• ISBN: 9780758290021

Reviews for Leave Myself Behind

[sandburg_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of the best books I've read this year. Sarcastic and funny, sometimes rude. A great read. Highly recommended. Bravo, Yates!

[eltomaso · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A clever, imaginative, and well written gay coming of age novel; recommended!

[kassilem · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Reading all the GLBT books I have been reading made me think of this book again. I read it years ago, loved it, and bought it. I liked it just as much this second time around. Noah's critical disposition is not found in lots of narrators and while sometimes you want to shake him and tell him it's okay to break down, other times it creates the comic relief. The writing is wonderful. In all of Yates's books, the writing has been wonderful. And the book is a page turner. Noah being gay does not make this a coming of age story which was also refreshing. I like the books where it's a fact of the story but the story is not based solely on it. Anyways, it's a great story that I highly recommend for anyone.

[narwhaltortellini · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Noah is seventeen, honest and a bit profane (not anywhere near so much as other reviews or Noah himself seem to say, though). A kid from Chicago, he and his slightly psycho mother have just moved to a big house in a small rural town. As the two repair the house, they begin to discover jars filled with bits of writing, pictures, and other trinkets from the previous owners of the house, unraveling a mystery which consequently begins the unraveling of Noah's mother as well. Oh, and you know, there's some business with Noah and a kid from town (J.D.) realizing they're gay for each other and dealing with that.So. A little funny, a little mystery, an interesting mother/son relationship, a little romance, a little sex, maybe even a little 'literary,' but looked to have conversational, easily digestible prose. And the praise for it seems pretty universal. To a certain extend I was willing to write that off as the only-people-who-like-this-sort-of-thing-read-it-so-everyone-who-reads-it-likes-it factor, but I was expecting to like this pretty well.Verdict? I feel kind of horrible saying this since I've barely found a negative review, but... This isn't bad at all, but I really do think it's overrated.The first half, though, IS better than the second. The worst part, I'd say, is that the romance between the mains feels pretty generic. J.D. and all those connected with him feel this way, actually. He's got a bitchy girlfriend, a couple normal supportive guy friends, a nicer female friend who will of course be supportive of their gayness later on, bullies at school, and a ugly bitchy mom and a fat drunk of a dad. I mean, what is this, Harry Potter? Do people have to have such flat, overdone personalities, and must they also have physical appearances that match them just so you don't get confused or anything? (Mind, it kind of works in HP. But here we're not reading HP, and here it doesn't work.) J.D. himself doesn't have much of a personality at all (or rather, he seemed like he might when we meet him, but he flattens out more and more the longer the novel goes on).Still, the two are decently endearing, and for other good points, in general it's pretty well written, a little funny (it's not really THAT funny, mind. It's just got kind of a humorous tone sometimes), the mystery is nothing amazing but pretty interesting as a side plot. Noah's mom was a good mix of intelligent, motherly, and batty, and there's tension in the air when she starts to become more unhinged. Actually, this novel at first kind of reminded me of the movie Beautiful Thing, in that the romance was sweet but generic, but the movie was made actually very good by the fact the other characters were more interesting, and sort of warmed me up so I could enjoy the scenes between the mains more. The mystery in the house and Noah's mom were what did that for me in this book. It was pleasant.In about the middle, though, it begins to lose direction on all accounts. As we learn more about the mystery of the jars and the house, it starts looking less interesting and more just contrived. Noah's mom becomes more distant generic crazy. As everyone around him spirals into crazy or depressed, Noah really doesn't change his behavior much. There's an attempt to give a couple of the characters angsty backgrounds to explain their current personality. Since the characters have already gotten together at this point, nothing more is going on on the romantic end.So it's a pleasant read for the first part, and a little tiresome for the last. For me. But even at the best of times, I really do finds this much less grand than most seem to say. It's still maybe a little better than average, but I probably wouldn't read anything else by Yates since I'm finding this rather overrated. ...Only I've already got another novel of his on my shelf. Well, this was a first novel, anyway. Perhaps he improves?

[jsheas · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is definitely a worthwhile read - it possesses a unique plot and a fresh perspective, but much of the praise it is given may perhaps be unwarranted. Some have claimed that its narrator is worthy of being considered the Holden Caulfield of a new generation - this isn't so. Although Noah certainly has a realistic voice and the limited perspective that all who have passed through adolescence are well-acquainted with, it stops short of being all that it could be. It's a fun read with a fresh voice, but it's easily forgettable. (And, sometimes, that's okay.)

[meggyweg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Although I thought the whole mason-jars-and-baby's-skeleton thing that drove that plot was pretty over the top, I loved this book for its extremely good depiction of human relationships: Noah's relationship with his mother and his deceased father, his growing romance with J. D., J.D.'s abusive mom, etc. The dialogue and the characters' actions were very real to me, and Noah and J.D.'s homosexuality was well done. Some books overstress the gay aspect of the story, but in this case the amount of emphasis was just right: clearly a factor in play, but not something you got slammed over the head with. I look forward to reading more of this author's work.

[phoebesmum · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Part coming of age story, part gay romance, part mystery-come-melodrama; maybe a bit over-ambitious, but a good narrative voice. (Grammatical nitpick: repeated use of 'lay' for 'lie'.)