Read my recent essay, written with Jessica Martell, on Helene’s aftermath in Salvation South, “After the Deluge: Appalachia’s ‘Climate Haven’ Myth Unravels.”
The audio version of Our Bodies Electric is now available!
A Southern teenager struggles to understand his gender and sexuality amongst a conservative, religious family, but he finds comfort in the writings of Walt Whitman and support from a cast of eccentric small-town characters.
Tormented by his religious family and the broader conservative community of Pawleys Island, South Carolina, fourteen-year-old Josh struggles with the pressure to conform to their puritanical standards. As he embarks upon his high school years, Josh meets a supportive cast of eccentric small-town characters, falls in love with his classmate, becomes obsessed with David Bowie, and fumbles in his attempts to make his own thongs. But it’s when his elderly neighbor gives him a copy of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” that he begins to understand his own sexuality. Our Bodies Electric is a coming-of-age story that celebrates the exuberance of youth, the individual quest for sexual identity, and the joy of finding connections in the most unexpected of places.
“In this spirited coming of age novel, Zack Vernon vividly renders Josh and his fellow middle-school misfits as they seek understanding and acceptance in a world that wishes only to trap them into a stifling conformity. Our Bodies Electric is poignant and comic, and Vernon’s linking Walt Whitman’s celebration of individuality to the characters adds to the novel’s pleasure”
— Ron Rash, author of The Caretaker
“I haven’t heard music so sweet and heartfelt since I first read Lewis Nordan. Imagine a novel that sings like a love-drunk cross between The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Breakfast Club. Now imagine it set in the sweltering heat of lowcountry South Carolina. Now imagine it told in the spirit of Walt Whitman. Now imagine that book in your hands.”
— Mark Powell, author of The Late Rebellion
“Our Bodies Electric tickled my funny bone and my heart. Every page flickers with profound sincerity and and indelible strangeness. I want to hug Josh and Chloe—and Zackary Vernon for writing such a beautiful story about the splendor and sadness of growing up. I only wish this book would’ve existed during my adolescence.”
— Caleb Johnson, author of Treeborne
“Zackary Vernon has rendered all the joys and chaos of adolescence out of a gauzy-heat that stretches across this debut like summer in the South. Rambunctious and alive with language that would have Whitman blushing and cheering for Josh and his rag-tag-company as they embark on a journey to self-discovery that is at once set in time and timeless. Through moments of embarrassment, angst, convulsive laughter, and eventually triumph, Vernon’s writing sings out. I couldn’t put in down!”
— Matthew Wimberly, author of Daniel Boone’s Window
“Take one strong-willed and curious kid and set him spinning through a tumultuous adolescence in small-town South Carolina. Mix in sea turtles, Walt Whitman, surly waitresses, a snake charmer, and more than a few scorching summer days, et voila! You’ve got the unforgettable, enjoyable, and heart-felt Our Bodies Electric.”
— Emily Nemens, author of The Cactus League
“In Zack Vernon’s Our Bodies Electric, young protagonist Josh navigates the relentless world of ever-watchful parents and oddball friends, forever obsessed and enamored by the endless beauties of All Things Female. Josh is curious, intelligent, and intent on doing what’s right. How could so many plans go wrong? This is one heart-rending, comedic coming-of-age novel.”
— George Singleton, author of The Curious Lives of Nonprofit Martyrs
“Zackary Vernon’s debut novel, Our Bodies Electric, is not only excruciatingly funny, but also a powerfully imaginative tour-de-force of endearing teenager Josh’s attempts to come to grips with the tyranny and impulses of his body—in face of his mother’s edict: ‘A mind full of sex is like a mind full of maggots.’ Indeed, Vernon’s sentences crackle with electricity; and, often, the emotional and sexual voltage is simply too much for Josh—who swelters in every valence of that word in the South Caroline lowcountry that Vernon knows so well and dishes up so memorably. Get your hands on this wonderful novel. It’s like a jolt from a 220 line—Walt Whitman hovering wryly in benediction over every syllable.”
— Joseph Bathanti, former Poet Laureate of North Carolina and author of The Act of Contrition