Product Description

A lonely boy walking along a highway one autumn evening meets the boy of his dreams, a boy who happens to have died decades ago and haunts the road. Awkward crushes, both bitter and sweet, lead him to face youthful dreams and childish fears. With its cast of offbeat friends, antiques, and Ouija boards, Vintage is not your typical romance but does offers readers a memorable blend of dark humor, chills and love.
A finalist for the Andre Norton Award and Gaylactic Spectrum Award!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #160456 in Books
• Published on: 2008-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Perfect Paperback
• 208 pages

Review
Vintage is an outstanding example of how genres such as YA fantasy and supernatural fiction can be used to create new stories which exploit the potential of speculative fiction to address social issues. I am already anticipating the next book by Steve Berman. --Green Man Review

An unnamed, gay Goth enthusiast and his friend Trace spend their time frequenting thrift shops, attending random funerals, and playing with ouija boards. On the way home from one of their jaunts, the protagonist finds himself haunted by a jock-ish ghost dressed in 1950s regalia. At first, he is charmed, intrigued, and turned on, but when the ghost, Josh, turns out to be a jealous maniac bent on keeping him forever, the teen discovers that he needs to ditch the demon and fast before it's too late. The action kicks off with a blast in this slim, densely packed volume and keeps chugging forward until the bitter end. Berman has created a creepy, kitschy, lusty atmosphere particularly when the narrator's abilities to tap into a ghost's past are harnessed that should appeal to mature horror fans. That said, the narrative is weakened by more telling than showing, especially when the more gripping sequences are stalled by explanation rather than rapid-fire action. All the same, gay teen readers who've been hankering for a horror story all their own will be thrilled with all of the creeps, crawls, chills, and eyeliner that Berman has to offer. --School Library Journal

From the Publisher
Since, Vintage is dedicated to a young friend of the author that committed suicide, The author has arranged that 1/5 of the royalties from Vintage will be donated to charities helping gay teens:10% will be donated to the GSA Network, which assists Gay-Straight Student Alliances in high schools; another 10% donated to the Trevor Project, which works to prevent suicide among gay youth.

About the Author
Steve Berman has been writing stories both queer and strange for many years. He has had more than 80 articles and short stories sold and his work has appeared in the fantasy anthologies The Faery Reel and The Coyote Road. Berman also edited So Fey and Magic in the Mirrorstone. He once worked as a professional bookbuyer to expand his personal library and he now lives in southern New Jersey surrounded by many old and odd books.

Customer Reviews

A HAUNTING WE WILL GO...
What a fun gothic ghost story! Appropriately set in Weird NJ, (I can say that, I lived there and it is indeed, weird.), a gay teen GOTH, who has been kicked out of his parent's home because he is gay, and his equally GOTH female friend Trace, embark on a ghostly adventure that turns into more than just a flight of fancy.

In 1957, a high school football jock, Josh, is killed by a hit-and-run, while he is walking along Rt.47 in New Jersey. His ghost supposedly "walks" Rt. 47, trying to get home. And Trace are intent upon making contact with the spirit, but only the protagonist successfully makes contact with Josh's ghost. The young hero is quickly enamored with the handsome and sexy ghost and the story takes off from there.

In the process of telling the tale, the reader is introduced to a graveyard full of ghosts, a lesbian teen couple, Trace's brother, and another brother's ghost, some tender gay sex, ghostly sex, Ouija board play, a séance, and a dark story that involves Josh, and his 1957 contemporaries.

This story speaks to several subjects throughout the plot and sub-plots. That, in and of itself, adds legitimacy to what otherwise might be interpreted as a "light weight" story.

This book makes for fascinating and totally enjoyable reading. I highly recommend it.

Neat Twists on Traditional Theme
Vintage follows the accepted conventions of the ghost story: an unhappy soul haunts a section of highway not realizing that he is dead and so causes problems for the living, the plot of the novel is how the ghost is allowed to rest. But Steve Berman's added a neat twist--actually two twists. The first is that the main characters who experience the haunting and then try to do something to help the ghost are modern day goth teenagers with a penchant for dressing outlandishly in black (with maybe a little mascara for effect), drinking and drugging with reckless abandon, and driving their parents crazy. The novel is told in the first person of one of these teenagers; Berman has got the jargon and voice down pat to introduce the reader to this goth Holden Caufield with a cellphone and taste for ecstasy and peppermint schnapps.

The second twist is that the main character is gay; he's living with a liberal-minded aunt because his uptight parents told him to leave when his homosexuality was made embarrassingly public. He's got a job working in a retro fashions and used clothing store and made friends with several teenage girls, including a young lesbian couple, who frequent the store looking for goth costumery. And the ghost that's haunting the highway on the outskirts of town was himself a teenager of the 1950s who died mysteriously after his own homosexuality was made embarrassingly public--maybe he was murdered; maybe by the guy he was in love with; maybe in an act of homophobia.

There are twists and turns in the plot. The resolution is delightfully satisfying. Even the ghost is happy by the end and can go to his rest. And the teenagers turn their goth fascinations toward adulthood.

The most interesting and well-written section of the story revolves around the protagonist's infatuation with the ghost--and the ghost's with him. It's not giving away too much to reveal that the ghost died longing for love and conflicted about his sexuality and so when the goth teenager shows up dealing with the same issues, a strange relationship develops. The description of their lovemaking is both arousing and exciting and creepy and, literally, chilling. For the ghost's affections turn out to suck the life and warmth out of the living boy and he has to struggle against his own conflicts with growing up gay to avoid following the ghost into icy death.

Vintage: A Ghost Story certainly plays on the gay interest with consciousness on the margins. It's a fast read, entertaining, and just delightfully chilling. The reader too will be happy, warmed up, and satisfied when the steaming hot peppermint-flavored cocoa is served at the end--and gay love saves the day.

Enchanting
Young adult fiction with gay themes is a relatively recent and blossoming genre. Steve Berman's Vintage is an enchanting edition to the canon. The novel is a paranormal romance and a modern ghost story filled with plenty of creepy moments to satisfy the horror enthusiast. When the unnamed narrator makes contact with a lonely highway ghost, he is initially enthralled. The relationship turns from supernatural to sinister when the ghost shows himself to be jealous of the narrator's live friends and powerful enough to cause them harm. Vintage's character-driven plot enthralls; a must-read for any fan of teen lit.