Syracuse University alumnus Christopher Boucher fascinated an audience in Gifford Auditorium in Huntington Beard Crouse Hall on Wednesday with a reading from his wacky post-modern novel, ‘How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive.’

The reading took place at 5:30 p.m. after a Q-and-A session. The event was part of the spring 2012 Raymond Carver Reading Series and was free and open to the public. A majority of the students in the audience were from the ETS 107: ‘Living Writers’ class offered though the English department at SU. Students in the class read and discussed the book.

David Nutt, a graduate student, introduced Boucher. Nutt said the novel has metaphors that ‘run amuck,’ but also convey a ‘literalized world hidden in plain sight.’ He described the novel as a successful example of a post-modern book that comes ‘painfully and so joyfully alive.’

The novel, which takes place in western Massachusetts, is about a young reporter’s struggle to raise his unique son: a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle that runs on the stories he tells it. The original 1960s book, which shares the same title, was a major inspiration for his novel, Boucher said before the reading.

He said, however, that he wanted to turn it into something entirely different to match his own unique style.

‘My story has some surreal rules,’ Boucher warned his audience before he started his readings. He then described how he uses units of money to describe time throughout the novel.

Boucher graduated from SU in 2002 with a master’s degree in fine arts. He said he began work on his novel while he was a student at SU. An early version of the novel was the thesis for his final year of graduate school, he said.

Many of the metaphors he used in the novel were inspired by actual events in his life, Boucher said. Boucher symbolizes his father’s actual heart attack by including a vicious ‘heart attack tree’ in the novel.

Students in the ETS 107 class who attended the event said they found the readings to be appealing.

‘It was interesting,’ said Adam Weigel, an undeclared freshman in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management. ‘I think he was one of the most interactive authors we’ve had so far.’

Weigel also said he liked how Boucher revealed that many elements of the novel, including the settings and characters, were autobiographical. This allowed the audience to connect with the author on a more personal level, he said.

Jason Gao, a freshman in the pre-law track, said he found the readings engaging.

‘I thought it was really eventful,’ he said. Gao also said he liked the ‘how-to’ format of the book when he read it on his own and thought it was even better when Boucher read it aloud for the audience.

smhazlit@syr.edu

Published on March 7, 2012 at 12:00 pm

Contact Shannon: smhazlit@syr.edu