The Night Gwen Stacy Died is the story of two young runaways who are
modeling their lives after Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy. Sheila is 17
yrs old and works at a gas station in Coralville Iowa. She dreams of
moving to Paris one day, but then comes to realize how unrealistic that
dream is. Peter Parker is a 20-something taxi driver who often stops in
at the gas station where Sheila works. He lives with his mother and is
still haunted by his brother's suicide many years before. Though Peter
and Sheila rarely talk, she finds herself oddly attracted to him.
One
night Peter Parker comes in with a gun. He wants Sheila to run away
with him. She agrees and they make it look like he robbed and abducted
her. They drive to Chicago. Peter has prophetic dreams and feels that
they were supposed to come to Chicago. Sheila takes the name Gwen Stacy
and they find jobs while Peter tries to figure out why they are there.
The
book is kind of hard to explain because there is a lot of symbolism and
different themes-- Peter has prophetic dreams, Sheila takes on Gwen's
persona, she also has a strange connection to the taxidermy coyote in
the University of Iowa's Natural History Museum, and coyotes show up
numerous times throughout the book. You can interpret that as you will.
I
found the story compelling though I felt it needed a bit more character
development. I didn't always understand Sheila's actions. The books
switches between voices and I enjoyed hearing situations from both
Sheila's and Peter's perspectives. The pacing of the book is a bit slow
in the middle but it really picked up near the end and I found the
ending to be satisfying, yet I want to hear more of their story.
It's a little offbeat, and won't appeal to everyone. I found it to be a satisfying mix of Jennifer Egan and of Spider-man.
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