Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press, 2006  

ISBN 0-312-34096-6

 

In my younger days I was quite the voracious reader, be it comic books, cereal boxes, bubble gum cards or monster magazines (I was a child of the 1960s, after all). My love for reading continued into my teenage years where I happily consumed Dickens, Shakespeare, Poe, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Capote, Hawthorne, Bradbury, Tolkien, Harper Lee and countless others. But when college struck with its emphasis on business courses and innumerable textbooks on management, marketing, insurance and law, my fascination with the inventive world of fiction came to a temporary end. I would, from time to time, carve out a few hours here or set aside a scant block of time there to revisit that fondly remembered world of fiction...but the responsibilities of a full-time career and a marriage at 28 plus a mountain of magazine/newspaper subscriptions made it a difficult and increasingly infrequent reintroduction at best.

 

And then along comes PRODIGY. I had been in contact with Dave Kalstein via email for a year or so, having done a review of his short film RECESS (2003) starring Ian S. and Cy Carter. I also knew that he had written a screenplay entitled LIVING OFF INTEREST which he and Ian were trying to get produced and filmed. But when I received an announcement from Dave that his first novel was being published in December 2005 and that he would have a book reading/signing in January 2006 in NYC...I knew I had to read the book but wondered where I would find the time to do so.  "Jesus," I thought. "Now I have to get this book and actually read it !"

 

And so the book arrived from amazon.com (just in time for Dave to inscribe my unread copy at my house during a dinner we prepared especially for him and his Cocker Spaniel, Cooley).  Dave said he hoped I would enjoy it. After too much alcohol, I then treated Dave to Ian's play in NYC (seeing that play with a "buzz" on was a whole new and pleasant experience! ) So I promised myself that I would read 1 chapter a day until the task was completed (the novel runs 27 chapters, including a Prologue and an Epilogue)...VANITY FAIR, TIME, ROLLING STONE, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, etc. be damned! It was the very least I could do to support this young (newly turned 29) punk writer.

 

I already knew a bit about the basic premise of the novel since it was an expanded version of RECESS. It's a tale of a future (year 2036) utopian prep school that drugs its students (called "specimens") with a daily med cycle consisting of performance enhancing substances  and enforced rigorous discipline in order to turn out elite graduates who have their pick of colleges and future jobs, all for the benefit of the country and for the glory of the Stansbury School. PRODIGY expands the story into a murder mystery and futuristic thriller. A series of former Stansbury graduates are mysteriously murdered and the authorities both inside and outside the school are trying to frame one of their current misfit students as the chief culprit. The interactions among diverse groups of students and administrators forms the crux of the plot. Everyone involved is a potential suspect in the unfolding conspiracy and the ultimate revelations are both shocking and exhilarating.

 

I knew that PRODIGY was going to be a page turner (plus I appreciated that many of the chapters are relatively brief) but I soon broke my own oath to read 1 chapter a night...I soon upped it to 2 chapters...and then to 3. I literally could not put this book down and wound up finishing it in a week. And I wanted MORE when it was over!

 

Dave has a wonderful gift for words and he really draws the reader inside the characters. Of primary interest to readers of this website is the fact that Dave partially based one of the novel's main characters (William Winston Cooley) on Ian! Of course one can postulate and speculate as to which precise traits and descriptions of Mr. Cooley can be directly attributed and inferred to Ian (I'll never tell) and this adds another level of enjoyment to the book if you are an Ian fan. If you read the book's dedication you'll find Ian's name listed (I hope to qualify for the book's second printing! ).

 

In addition to having a gift for words, Dave's ideas are also extremely perceptive and intelligent and there is enough social satire and political commentary in the book to satisfy the most demanding reader. I found it hard to believe that Dave was in his late twenties when he wrote PRODIGY and that his editors left his original manuscript almost completely intact and unchanged. Clearly his own prep school experiences led to his creative juices flowing and inspired his confidence in the novel.

 

Now, please don't just take my word for the quality of PRODIGY (even if yours truly has been around the block a few times) and get thee to amazon.com or your local bookstore and discover the pleasures of this novel for yourselves...believe me when I say you'll find the effort worthwhile. PRODIGY is quite the auspicious debut and it restored my love for engrossing fiction.