by John Raymond
The climax seemed to go on for an hour, and Aaron sucked in every note, followed every coiling, cornering trail as it lasered through his mind. He loved this stupid fucking song. He loved the racist assholes who wrote it. He planned to listen to it again as soon as it ended. And he could tell Joel was loving it, too, the way he was grinning like a sated cat, eyes half-closed, hand draped on the wheel. I-5 stretched ahead of them, a great, gray strip into the southern unknown, and all around them the world was ablaze with music. Aaron raced straight into it, right into the heart, as if he were hearing its song for the very first time in his life.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people contributed invaluably to the writing of this book.
First and foremost: Fiona McCrae, whose faith is a gift, and whose almost supernatural editorial instincts made the book a thousand times better; and Bill Clegg, brilliant writer, reader, agent, and friend.
In the realm of research: Jason Bell provided much-needed medical information; Megan Ponder and Michael Rosen shared crucial insights regarding municipal governance; Ronin Colman helped with guns; and Tom Cody supplied not only a big idea, but a splash of personal charisma as well.
Great thanks to everyone at Graywolf, especially Steve Woodward, who discovered the title. And to everyone at Tin House, a family to which I feel beyond honored to belong—with extra arrows of gratitude shooting to Tony Perez, editor, writer, and mensch extraordinaire.
And for all these readers I am tremendously grateful: Heather Abel, Domenick Ammirati, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Sean Byrne, Emily Chenoweth, Steve Doughton, Todd Haynes, Cheston Knapp, Camela Raymond, Carole Raymond, Richard Raymond, Kelly Reichardt, Michael Shamberg, Mattathias Schwartz, Rob Spillman, Pauls Toutonghi, Storm Tharp, James Yu, and Tony Zito. And most of all, my grandfather’s old friend, Bill Kaye.
MORE PRAISE FOR
FREEBIRD
“Jon Raymond’s wonderful new book Freebird poetically wrestles with the big and the small: how globalization and international conflicts reconcile with the personal; how the amorality of war affects individual psyches; how impulsive post adolescence mirrors impulsive old age. And the undercurrent of this increasingly suspenseful story is a fascinating discussion of environmental mutilation, at once a tangle of benign bureaucracy and calculated avarice, which Raymond tackles with equal parts sensitivity and expertise.”
—JESSE EISENBERG, AUTHOR OF BREAM GIVES ME HICCUPS
“Freebird is such a timely book. considering the current deep divisions between right and left. A new classic for the collapsing political landscape of America.”
—KIM GORDON, AUTHOR OF GIRL IN A BAND
“Freebird is an intelligent and absorbing multi-generational story of an American family, written with great sensitivity, insight, and verve.”
—PATRICK DEWITT, AUTHOR OF THE SISTERS BROTHERS
“[Freebird is] the rare work of fiction that feels more timely with each passing moment.”
—SEATTLE WEEKLY
“Thanks to Raymond’s loose, masterful style, Freebird is an arm wrestling match between hilarity and heartbreak.”
—INTERVIEW
“A binge-worthy novel, lightly satirical and compulsively readable.”
—SHELF AWARENESS
“Freebird’s structure is a symmetrical braid, wrapping the experiences of underappreciated Los Angeles city employee Anne Singer, her Navy SEAL brother Ben, and Anne’s just-post-high-school son Aaron around one another, tighter and tighter, until they finally come together in a frayed ending that’s as satisfying as it is genuinely shocking. Freebird contains one of the most moving and not-at-all cheesy depictions of the afterlife I remember reading. Most authors simply don’t go there, but Raymond does. And thank God for that.”
—THE LOS ANGELES REVIEW
“Raymond rotates between Anne’s, Ben’s and Aaron’s points of view, his gallows humor and psychological acuity informing the action of every character. . . . His descriptive powers. . . pull you into a kind of sensuous ambiguity that’s as seductive for the reader as it is for his characters. . . . The biggest impression the book leaves is of a novelist reaching the height of his powers.”
—THE OREGONIAN
“The arrival of Freebird requires that you set aside all New Year plans and dive in without delay. . . . A darkly relatable amorality tale from a skilled storyteller.”
—PORTLAND MONTHLY
ALSO BY JON RAYMOND
The Community: Writings about Art in
and around Portland, 1997–2016
Rain Dragon
Livability
The Half-Life
PHOTO © MICHAEL PALMIERI
JON RAYMOND is the author of the novels Rain Dragon and The Half-Life, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2004, and the short-story collection Livability, a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and winner of the Oregon Book Award. He is also the screenwriter of the film Meek’s Cutoff and cowriter of the films Old Joy and Wendy and Lucy, both based on his short fiction, and the film Night Moves. He also cowrote the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce, winner of five Emmy Awards. Raymond’s writing has appeared in Tin House, the Village Voice, Bookforum, Artforum, Playboy, Zoetrope, and other publications. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Copyright © 2018 Jon Raymond
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except
in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For
information, contact Tin House Books, 2617 NW Thurman St., Portland, OR
97210.
Published by Tin House Books, Portland, Oregon, and Brooklyn, New York
Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
ISBN 978-1-941040-83-6
ISBN 978-1-941040-84-3 (e-book)
First US Paperback Edition 2018
Interior design by Jakob Vala
www.tinhouse.com