{"id":7,"date":"2014-01-19T22:21:16","date_gmt":"2014-01-19T22:21:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/troyehlers.com\/blog\/?p=7"},"modified":"2014-01-19T22:31:08","modified_gmt":"2014-01-19T22:31:08","slug":"endless-love-by-scott-spencer-part-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/troyehlers.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/19\/endless-love-by-scott-spencer-part-i\/","title":{"rendered":"Endless Love by Scott Spencer (Part I)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was first assigned to read the opening pages of Endless Love<\/em><\/strong> by Scott Spencer in a writing workshop led by Roy Hoffman.<\/a>\u00a0 This was not a book I would have picked up on my own, if only because it conjured up images of a gauzy Brooke Shields romance film from the early 1980s and lyrics from Lionel Richie and Diana Ross.\u00a0 From the novel\u2019s title, and those sounds and images, I was expecting something sappy.\u00a0 Instead, what I encountered was perhaps one of the greatest, most tortured and explosive openings to a novel that I\u2019d ever read.<\/p>\n

After reading the opening in workshop, I purchased a copy of the novel, but it sat on my shelf for years (as many books do), waiting until I had the time and the right frame of mind to read it.\u00a0 I knew the time for Endless Love<\/em><\/strong> had come when I saw the theatrical trailer for the film\u2019s re-make (opening on Valentine’s Day, 2014).\u00a0 This was a gripping trailer, with Lionel Richie\u2019s song replaced by an ominous a capella rendition of Robert Palmer\u2019s \u201cAddicted to Love\u201d sung by Florence + The Machine (yes, another 1980\u2019s song, but it\u2019s creepy and it works). \u00a0Of course, it’s easy to make good trailers from bad movies, so I’ll reserve my opinion of the film, but I might try watching both films after reading the novel.<\/p>\n

Such a thrill, to re-read those opening pages and to know that this time I get to read the entire story.\u00a0 Scott Spencer creates a magnificent, electric charge with the first chapter.\u00a0 In the opening lines, the first-person narrator tells us that his life was divided forever by the story he begins to relate; he tells us that he is about to set fire to a house holding his girlfriend and the four people that he cares most about in the world.\u00a0 Wow.\u00a0 Got your attention?<\/p>\n

Suspense builds as we get thumbnail sketches of each of the people in the house as the soon-to-be-arsonist watches them through the window.\u00a0 Additionally we learn that he had for months lived with the family, openly sharing the bed of their fifteen year-old daughter.\u00a0 We learn that, for some reason, he\u2019d been banished from the house for a term of thirty days, and this is the instigation for his lighting the match.\u00a0 Not because he intends to burn down their house or endanger them, but only because he\u2019s desperate for their attention and knocking on the door won\u2019t do him any good.\u00a0 Even before the fire begins, we learn that the outcome will be that he\u2019s brought to trial as an arsonist and is sent to a psychiatric hospital.<\/p>\n

What a terrific wind-up for a novel.\u00a0 The imminent danger of the fire to the loved ones inside; the potential for a life full of guilt; the desperation of already having been separated from a family and a girlfriend; the mad passion of young lust.\u00a0 And, too, there are the mysteries we look forward to understanding\u2014how is their family so eccentric, not only because they\u2019d allowed him to live there with their fifteen year-old daughter, but because when he bursts into the house to save them from the fire, he finds that they are all tripping on LSD!\u00a0 As readers, we want to see how he\u2019ll deal with the aftermath, but we also want to understand what came before: why was he banished from the house?\u00a0 Why was he so tortured that he couldn\u2019t wait out his sentence to return to them?\u00a0 And, on top of this, the seed for a potentially unreliable narrator is sewn by the third page when the narrator says that even he cannot understand his true motives and that the statement he gives to authorities begins to feel less than authentic even to himself.\u00a0 This is a narrator whose sanity is questionable, and yet if he is only temporarily insane, we wonder whether this family or this girlfriend might have driven him there.<\/p>\n

I love opening chapters that operate on so many levels!<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be back soon to give my thoughts on the rest of the novel.\u00a0 In the meantime, here are some YouTube clips related to the movies (neither of which I\u2019ve seen yet, but intend to watch both after reading\u2026I always prefer the novel, but I must admit I’m curious to watch both of these, even though the 1981 version was considered a failure despite its star-power. \u00a0The 1981 version was Tom Cruise’s debut, Ian Zeiring’s debut, and had a young James Spader as well). \u00a0I’m also including a clip of the author, Scott Spencer speaking at a conference (not related to Endless Love,<\/em><\/strong> <\/em>although it’s mentioned in the Q&A and he calls the movie “an icon to bad movie-making”, and how excited he was to get a $10,000 advance for the novel).<\/p>\n

Endless Love 1981<\/a>\u00a0(Song Film Excerpt)<\/p>\n

Endless Love 2014<\/a>\u00a0(Trailer)<\/p>\n

Brooke Shields 1981 Interview<\/a><\/p>\n

Scott Spencer, National Book Festival 2010<\/a><\/p>\n