Attention. Deficit. Disorder.: A Novel

This is the second copy of this book that I've purchased, having given away the first copy to a friend. I'm typically pretty possessive of my books, but this one I had to let out to friends and family. Brad Listi has created a protagonist who is not only believable and grounded with real-life problems and misunderstandings, but is also culturally relevant to Generation X and Y. In Attention. Deficit. Disorder. you have a story about a young man not in the vein of the "whoa is me" phase of young adulthood, but a touching story of the yearning for understanding and meaning of why things happen the way they do. Two thumbs up from this reader.

This is a collection of scenes more than it is a novel. The scenes are memorable and visit a whole group of different places, including Cuba, New York, The Appalachian Trail, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and the Burning Man Festival.Reviewed by Jonathan Stephens

Excellent!

A lot of novels have been written trying to encompass the early nighties, the dot com bust, the so-called slacker years. And most of them have failed, at least in my estimation, because they tried way too hard to out-Bright Lights what turned out not to be a very Big City after all. In retrospect it seems clear that there really wasn't an over-arching theme to that time. Even obvious signposts like Burning Man and Cobain Suicide have resisted easy summation in a way that, say, Jim Morrison or Patty Hearst never were able to. And so, with this unassuming novel, Brad Listi may well have done the best job of non-summary of an era that I've read. His alter ego Wayne Fencer bumbles through his late twenties the way years of collegiate graduating classes bumbled before him--drinking too much, delivering pizza, being too sensitive about sex, dying to write a script, spending a week in Cuba, hiking until their feet blistered and they realized hiking was actually incredibly boring, being disappointed by old friends, and lying to their parents about having a purpose. There was no purpose and there may be no purpose yet. White hipster culture is doomed because there is no actual culture there. There is only an inexpressible longing to connect with others, and it turns out that those others are mostly too ironic and emotionally detached to participate. And so we gather at art shows and raves and concerts and readings and performances and take drugs and spend money in the hopes of a fleeting moment of authenticity. This books is about the search for authenticity. For connection. And the fact that it really is about nothing, and seems to expend no energy getting there, is almost the perfect expression of that purpose.Q: Who is John Galt?A: Who is Wayne Fencer?

I picked up A.D.D. just before Christmas. During this time, it traversed many landscapes in hand, in purse, in a shoulder-slung messenger bag, side-by-side with Franny & Zooey, Cure for the Common Life, and A Walk in the Woods. It was never far from me. It napped with me on the sofa after work. Can you sense the captivation?Strangely, a close interweaving of topics arose between all four books--loss, humor, escapism, contemplation, backpacking (yes, really), morality, seeking of self, singular encounters, realizations--united in Listi's. Coincidence? I'd prefer to think it's a sign of 'busy, busy, busy' as Vonnegut writes in Cat's Cradle. I am sincerely impressed with Listi's work. His is a fresh, unique voice. Nearing my final pages, I did not want the story to end. It's a deceptively easy book to read, entirely engaging, moving from story to quote, insight to statistic, definition to movie synopsis with the dexterity and ease of a superior, seasoned storyteller. Listi's love of knowledge--especially the odd fact--and his connectivity to emotion and humor radiate throughout main character, Wayne Fencer's journey of self.Indubitably, A.D.D. will be a real smasher. It comes highly recommended by this reader. Read on...<avant-garde n.>

Wow. I had put off reading this book because of the decidedly mixed reviews it had received. I wish I hadn't waited. I just tore through this book in a few hours' time, and when I reached the end, it left me with that weird teary feeling that comes on when I really connect with a story.The narrator of this book, Wayne, finds out that his ex-girlfriend has committed suicide. Over the course of the book, every decision he makes, each path he carves out is somehow colored by the horrible news he has received.This is, in some sense, a road novel combined with A. J. Jacob's The Know-It-All, which, coincidentally, I just finished reading a couple of weeks ago. Wayne's narrative is populated with definitions of words and the history of places, inventions and ideas. It is not clear as you read that these devices are directly tied to the narrative. I understand that some readers become impatient with this. I think perhaps The Know-It-All conditioned me for this -- but for whatever reason, it worked for me.By the end, I understood exactly what why these passages and digressions were there, and when I soaked up the last word of the last page, I experienced a moment of clarity about the narrator and his trajectory that startled me.This review may sound fairly vague, but I'd hate to get more specific about the "message" of this book and color your own interpretation or ruin your own experience reading it. I am guessing that this is the kind of book that will mean different things to different people, and resonate with their own life experiences in different ways.I recommend it to all, especially those who feel they can adapt to a somewhat experimental narrative form. I also wonder if this book will resonate more with men than women, but obviously I can't say...