33 Snowfish - Rilegato

Adam Rapp is the acclaimed author of several novels for young adults, as well as an accomplished playwright whose plays have been produced by the New York Theatre Workshop, The Bush Theatre in London, and the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Of 33 SNOWFISH, he says, "When we have nowhere to go, who do we turn
to? Why are we sometimes drawn to those who are deeply troubled? How
far do we have to run before we find new possibilities? These were some of the questions that kept haunting me while I was working on this book."
Timothy Basil Ering’s drawings in 33 SNOWFISH represent the notebook sketches of the troubled character Boobie, and he also created the book’s cover image. Tim Ering says, "I always think of illustration almost as a form of acting. When you receive a manuscript, you have to get into character and imagine being that character and what he or she is thinking. In this case, I also had to imagine how this character would draw, and how his drawing might change or shrink on the page according to his changing state of mind."

When I opened my eyes Boobie wasn’t in the driver’s seat no more. He wasn’t next to me and he wasn’t in the back seat neither, and when I looked up and through the windshield I could see him walking backwards through the dead trees.
I looked in the back seat again cuz I couldn’t hear the baby but the TV box was still there and the baby was in it and his arms was swimming out and you could see the windshield wipers slashing through his little blue eyes and I gave him my frostbite hand and he took it and put it in his mouth and I tried singing that "Hushabye Mountain" song to him but I couldn’t get the words right cuz my teeth was chattering.
Then I looked out through the windshield again and Boobie kept walking backwards, smaller and smaller, and the snow was thick and white and sideways but you could still see how his hair was lifting off his shoulders. He raised his hand up like he was trying to say goodbye and even though he was far away now I put my good hand up and tried to touch him through the glass.
And I called out to him, too. I used the voice in my throat and the voice in my heart and the voice in my guts and the psychic voice in my mind, but Boobie couldn’t hear me.
And I called out again and again till his hand fell and he started to fade, floating back and back, disappearing through the snowing trees.