Synopses & Reviews
Welcome to 1984 and the town of South Wakefield. Chris Lane is 14 and he's sure that he can see the future, or at least guess what's inside of Christie Brinkley's mind. But he can't foresee the closing of Joyland, the town's only video arcade. With the arcade's passing comes a summer of teenage lust, violence, and a search for new entertainment. Never far away is Chris's younger sister, Tammy, who plays spy to the events that will change the lives of her family and town forever. Joyland is a novel about the impossibility of knowing the future. Schultz brings the Cold War home in a novel set to the digital pulse of video games and the echoes of hair metal. Joyland is illustrated throughout by graphic novelist Nate Powell, whose work has been praised by Sin City creator Frank Miller as observant, intimate cartooning that] surgically cuts to the bone.
Review
"Schultz's latest is a satire of office life, romance novels, and afterlife narratives. She has accomplished something quite remarkable here, deftly juggling all this social commentary and a rather blandly sympathetic protagonist with a sharp command of language." Publishers Weekly on Heaven Is Small
Review
"I loved Joyland. Tammy Lane is the most convincing child protagonist Ive encountered in years, a cross between Lynda Barrys Marlys, and Judy Blumes truth-seeking missile, Margaret." R. M. Vaughn, National Post
Review
"This is recommended reading, nostalgic technicolour at its sharpest. Joyland maps a believable world that depicts the grit and glitz of teenaged life in the small-town 1980s." Matrix Magazine
Synopsis
Like a Reagan-era Ice Storm, Emily Schultzs novel Joyland captures the confusion of adolescent sexuality in a tangle of pixelated icons via the video-game generation. Set in the summer of 1984, this book will have you thinking twice about the video-game generation and the power of pining and Pac-Man.” Flare BackLit bonus material includes an alternate ending and an author interview.
About the Author
Emily Schultz is the author of Black Coffee Night, which was short-listed for the Danuta Gleed Award for Best First Fiction, Heaven is Small, and Songs for the Dancing Chicken. She lives in Toronto. Nate Powell is a graphic novelist and illustrator whose work includes Any Empire and Swallow Me Whole, which won the Eisner Award for Best Graphic Novel and was a Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.