Some Things That Meant the World to Me

by Joshua Mohr

Book Overview

#8 of 10 Terrific Reads of 2009. "Charles Bukowski will dig the grit in this seedy novel, a poetic rendering of postmodern San Francisco." -O, The Oprah Magazine

A Best Book of the Year -The Nervous Breakdown

"Where Michel Gondry would go if he went down a few too many miles of bad desert road." -The Collagist

"Mohr's prose roams with chimerical liquidity. The magic of this book is a disturbing, hallucinogenic magic."...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0982015119
• ISBN13: 9780982015117
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: Two Dollar Radio
• Length: 205 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 7.4"

Customer Reviews

Much More than I expected

What a wonderful book this is. Additionally, as a clinical social worker and marriage and family therapist I was very impressed with the clinically accurate portrayal of Rhonda, the protagonist. Rhonda is a 30 year old man who suffers from 'depersonalization' which is one of the more severe symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. When someone suffers from depersonalization they can go into what is considered a fugue state or see themselves or parts of their body as 'other'. As part of his disorder, and also as an homage to his resiliency, Rhonda has an inner child that accompanies him from time to time. He calls this child 'Little Rhonda'. He also has an older Rhonda as a friend, nurturing and loving towards him, who he calls 'Old Lady Rhonda'. Both of these Rhondas help him to come to terms with his present life in relation to the trauma he suffered in the past. One of the ways that Little Rhonda shows Rhonda his past life, is through a glass-bottomed dumpster with a trap door. Rhonda can climb out of the dumpster into his past and is able to see and question what occurred when he was a child. Little Rhonda also travels with Rhonda back to Arizona where he grew up. Rhonda is searching for his home which he believes is the source of evil. Little Rhonda challenges Rhonda's beliefs and tries to help him with his reality-checking. Old Lady Rhonda doesn't ask questions. She nurtures Rhonda unconditionally. She gives him food, love and money and, together, they relax and watch Wheel of Fortune. She is the nurturing mother he never had. Rhonda's background is horrendous. His mother is an alcoholic who drinks 'Tcha-bliss' (Chablis) all day when she is at home. However, she often disappears for days or weeks at a time, leaving Rhonda with her horriby abusive boyfriend, Letch. Letch physically and sexually abuses Rhonda in their home and in order to integrate what is happening in his life, Rhonda blames the home for what is occurring. He sees his house as a desert landscape, stretching and filled with animals. In his own words, "I couldn't concentrate on anything except their warfare in our stretched, sandy house, as they screamed throughout the desert that was everywhere: a cactus had sprouted next to the TV, a dove perched on it; animals flying, slithering, crawling, running all around our desert; animals, livid and terrtorial". (p. 85) The book goes back and forth in time and place, from Rhonda's childhood to adulthood. It starts off in the present with Rhonda saving a hooker who is being beaten in San Francisco. Rhonda spends the night with the hooker and something occurs so that the hooker mocks and humiliates Rhonda rather than being thankful that Rhonda is her savior. The book then takes the reader to Rhonda's childhood in Arizona and to his time as a teen-ager in a psychiatric hospital where he meets with a supportive psychiatrist over time. The psychiatrist does his best to challenge Rhonda's belief that his house is

Fantastic Book

If I hadn't known going in that this was a first novel, I never would have guessed that was the case. I became interested in the book when I saw the blurb Donald Ray Pollack wrote about it. I read Pollack's book "Knockemstiff" last year, and thought it was very good, though very bleak. And there's where Mohr improves on Pollack's book. He's written a story about hurt, abused, damaged people, but injected it with heart. Rhonda is an odd, unreliable narrator, but before you've gotten too far into the story, you care about him, and want to know more of what is going and has gone on in his life. The writing is strong, the characters feel real, and there's a great mix of style (traditional narrative mixed with stream-of-consciousness) here. I highly recommend this one, and am looking forward to Mohr's next book, due out next year. A very impressive debut.

Best book I've read in ages

I loved this book! An amazing, wild, and humorous ride through the streets of San Francisco's Mission District. The book is filled with brilliantly illuminated imagery as we see the world through the main character's eyes. Following Rhonda, a 30 year old man who is trying to find a life far away from the craziness of his youth in Phoenix, we watch him learn how to make friends and let himself be loved by a tough man who drinks warm beer and a dreaming old woman who yearns to leave her husband and be on Wheel of Fortune. Rhonda's view of the world is unique and definitely different from ours; he remembers his childhood house as a symbolic object with drifting rooms that stretch farther apart the rougher his home life got. And he sees a dirty dumpster as a portal into which he can dive down to view his past life. These images are used intelligently and sparingly and are balanced by Rhonda's wild life of saving prostitutes from being beaten up and trying to date beautiful women. And also by his unflinching honesty into all parts of his life. I couldn't help but fall for the fragility of Rhonda, a young man who has a humor and intelligence that is all his own. An astonishing book and especially since it's Mohr's debut.

Gorgeous writing, unforgettable characters

I absolutely loved this book. Lost a full night of sleep reading it as it simply could not be put down. The warped world of the hero (a debatable title), Rhonda, starts out comfortably and safely enough, but veers sharply into very, very unfamiliar - and unstable - territory. Gorgeous, surefooted prose provides necessary ballast for Rhonda's quickly disintegrating perspective, letting you see far more than the first person narrative lets on. A very cool trick that brings to mind the protagonists in The Butcher Boy and even A Clockwork Orange - totally off-kilter yet somehow fully relatable and sympathetic. The fact that this writer manages to pull off a character so desperate to verify his own identity that he literally digs through a dumpster for a magic trapdoor into his memories, all without losing a moment's plausibility, is flat out amazing. Ultimately this is a redemption story, a man coming to terms with his fractured past while doggedly attempting to build a future. One of the fun things that separates this book from so many other stories and novels with similar themes is the flat-out unique world Mr. Mohr drops his Rhonda into, a nightmarish Mission district in San Francisco peopled by characters you'd love to see yourself...from across a street. Rhonda's Bloomsian tour of that part of the city, the bars and taquerias, back alleys and thundering gentrification efforts, is simply a blast to read. Gush, gush, I can't wait to read the next thing from this clever writer though it'll surely entail another night of lost sleep.

Incredibly moving novel, unique voice, tight prose, beautiful story

When I stumbled across Joshua Mohr's debut novel, I couldn't put the book down. The short chapters, tight prose, and relatable but flawed protagonist Rhonda, compelled me to turn each page. The prose reads eloquently like poetry and I had to force myself to slow down in order to savor each sentence. I highly recommend this book and look forward to more work from this talented young novelist. Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if we hear more of Mohr in the literary landscape.