Pete Hautman’s latest, The Big Crunch, is not the kind of love story you’d expect when someone says it’s a love story. June and Wes are an unlikely couple, both to themselves and to the reader. June’s parents drag her from city to city every year when her dad changes jobs, so she never has much time or inclination to make any real connections that will have to be dropped and forgotten. She’s developed a jaded stance that allows her to observe her life and remain aloof and safe from emotional attachments. Wes thinks of himself as a “semi-cool semi-geek” who at the start of junior year broke up with his girlfriend for reasons he can’t quite explain to himself or anyone else. He knows that the “connection” wasn’t really there and he’s pretty set on remaining free from any emotional entanglements for the rest of the year.
As June and Wes go through the fall of junior year, their paths cross occasionally and every time they do, each feels something within themselves that they can’t figure out. Both are resistant to the idea of attraction, preferring to find distraction in other places and people. But when the possibility arises that June and her parents may stay in Minneapolis long term, June takes a chance and acts on the chemistry she feels towards Wes. Their chance at romance, and perhaps love, is cut short when June’s dad takes a job in Omaha, and June must leave again. What follows is a long cold winter and spring when June and Wes long for each other and eventually have a hidden, long distance relationship. When summer comes they finally find a way to be together and experience their relationship as they both hoped it would be.
Hautman’s dual narrators, Wes and June, weave a complete and well-rounded story about that first real, intense relationship; the one that comes along maybe once in a lifetime and against which all other relationships afterward are compared. June and Wes’ voices and perspectives are distinct, honest, and fully developed and it’s easy for the reader to identify with and feel a connection to both characters. The pacing is slow but that works perfectly against the backdrop of a long Minnesota winter and two people who seem to afraid of their own hopes and desires. It’s a refreshing twist on a genre that should appeal to both guys and girls.
- Posted by Cori
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