Lowboy

Lowboy is American author John Wray’s third novel. Published in 2009 by Fraser Straus and Giroux, the novel takes the reader on a journey through New York City’s underbelly as seen through the eyes of Will Heller, also known as Lowboy. Heller is a paranoid schizophrenic who has recently decided to stop taking his medication, resulting in a sudden resurgence of symptoms. Heller must navigate the city, as well as the obstacles that present themselves within his own mind, on his mission to save the world from global warming.

The novel begins early one November morning, as sixteen-year-old William Heller enters the subway in Manhattan. This habit has earned him the nickname “Lowboy,” as he explains to an elderly Sikh man sitting next to him. Since he can remember, he has had a thing for riding trains, especially the subway. Through expertly crafted prose, Wray manages to immerse the viewer in the experience of a teenage paranoid schizophrenic, mirroring the skewed perspective of someone navigating the world while suffering from such a mental illness. What at first may seem like random observations turn out to be the seeds of thought of something much greater. In this way, Wray demands patience from his readers and a certain open-mindedness.

Lowboy expresses how, although his medications allow him to perform functionally within society, they make him feel as though he is “being pressed under glass.” For this reason, he decides to stop taking them, managing to escape his chaperones from the mental institution. He is fully convinced that global warming is threatening to destroy the world, not in some distant future but within the next ten hours. He believes himself to be the only one privy to this information, and therefore feels that it is his responsibility to stop it. He believes that the fate of the planet rests on his shoulders, dependent on the fact that he is able to have sex. He believes that in cooling down his own body, he will be able to cool down the temperature of the planet and that the only thing powerful enough to produce such a result would be the release that occurs during sex. Lowboy is on a mission to locate an old friend, Emily Wallace. Emily is Lowboy’s dream girl, and the two have a history together. They used to date, and it is hinted that Emily had something to do with Lowboy’s institutionalization.



While Lowboy is navigating the city in pursuit of Emily, he is also being pursued, both by his mother, Yda (aka Violet), and detective Ali Lateef, who has been charged with leading the investigation on the boy’s disappearance. Each chapter in the novel is told from the perspective of either Lowboy himself or Yda and Lateef, offering a juxtaposition between their points of view which serves to further characterize them to the reader. Ali and Violet are both desperate to locate Will, but for different reasons. Concerned that Will is a threat to others, Ali wishes to stop him before he causes any damage, while Violet knows that in spite of his mental illness, her boy is no criminal, and is concerned for his own personal safety. Their interactions are heated, charged with the passion they both feel in fulfilling their personal missions. At first, they butt heads, but over time, they find a commonality that helps them work together. They both come to the realization that they need one another in order to succeed. There also seems to be some hints of romantic flirtation throughout their interaction, as they get to know each other better.

Much of the novel occurs underground, in subway cars and stations. In an interview, Wray revealed that he wrote much of the novel while riding the subway in an attempt to immerse himself in the mind of someone like Lowboy, as well as the sights and sounds that are particular to that setting. He also extensively studied schizophrenia, wanting to render an accurate depiction rather than a caricature of someone suffering from the mental illness. He succeeds in painting a vivid portrait with Lowboy, as the sixteen-year-old comes to terms with the fact that “the order of the world is not [his] order.”

Lowboy does finally succeed at tracking down the elusive Emily, and she agrees to help him with his mission, though he initially fails to disclose his true intentions. Although her motivations for helping him are unclear, it seems that she has somehow fallen in love with Lowboy in spite of the fact that they have been apart for some time. The novel calls into question what each of us would do in Lowboy’s place, at the same time suggesting that most members of society would act solely with the intention of self-preservation, putting their own needs before those of the collective good. In this way, Wray offers a humanistic depiction of schizophrenia, one that blurs the lines that separate them from us.