Wayne Kyle Spitzer

X-Ray Rider 1 Wayne Kyle Spitzer

It's the dawn of the 1970s and everything is changing. The war in Vietnam is winding down. So is the Apollo Space Program. The tiny northwestern city of Spokane is about to host a World's Fair. But the Watergate Hearings and the re-entry of Skylab and the eruption of Mount Saint Helens are coming...as are killer bees and Ronald Reagan. Using the iconography of 20th century trash Americana-drive-in monster movies, cancelled TV shows, vintage comic books-Spitzer has written an unconventional memoir which recalls J. M. Coetzee's Boyhood and Youth. More than a literal character, 'The Kid' is both the child and the adult. By eschewing the technique of traditional autobiography, Spitzer creates a spherical narrative in which the past lives on in an eternal present while retrospection penetrates the edges. X-Ray Rider is not so much a memoir as it is a retro prequel to a postmodern life-a cinematized "reboot" of what Stephen King calls the "fogged out landscape" of youth.