Fourteen-year-old Josh hails from a super religious family and the conservative area of Pawleys Island, South Carolina. His family and the area’s puritanical pressures do not coincide with Josh’s budding open-mindedness and interests in the human body and sexuality. His eccentricities — like his interest in belly-buttons, which frequently causes him to stare whenever he sees one — make others uncomfortable and leave them expressing their frustration and disgust with Josh. As Josh begins his high school journey, his life changes rapidly, and in unpredictable ways: he fumbles to craft his own thongs; he discovers the joys of wearing women’s underwear; he falls in love with his best friend; and he begins questioning the radical religious upbringing that has shaped the majority of his life. Zackery Vernon’s Our BodiesElectric is a celebration of the eccentric ones, of youth’s exuberances and disappointments, and of the unexpected places where one finds the acceptance they need to become who they truly are.
The initial beauty of Our Bodies Electric is that Josh is an easily lovable and enduring character. His role as the misunderstood family misfit quickly endears him to readers, especially those who might be quick to find a resonance with him. His quirkiness and curiosity juxtapose the cookie-cutter mentality of those around him. This juxtaposition is particularly apparent in Josh’s relationship with his father, a real estate businessman to whom literal and figurative appearances matter. Throughout the novel, readers witness Josh’s father’s belittling of his son, and while many of the novel’s comic moments rely on the father’s jests, those jests also reveal the father’s true disposition. One of the book’s most memorable scenes is when Josh attempts to help his father with the family’s Fourth of July barbecue, which all their neighbors will attend. Josh begins digging out a safety moat around where the fire pit will be, citing a Boy Scouts safety lesson as his reason for doing so. Josh’s father, however, does not believe safety lessons apply to Fourth of July barbecues and, frustrated, he gives Josh yet another task. At the barbecue, when the father thinks Josh is not present, he begins recounting the story to his guests, who, along with Josh’s father, make fun of Josh’s efforts. Josh, however, overhears the story, makes his father a drink, and sprinkles roly-polies — an insect which fascinates Josh — into the beverage.
Josh’s relationship with his father serves as a metaphor for the relationships of those who are different from or who are “outsiders” to Pawleys Island and its natives. Josh’s father, as readers eventually learn, is a menacing figure who, towards the book’s end, rejoices when a new beach clothing store becomes engulfed in flames. He takes Josh to witness the carnage, saying that the destruction is a “good thing” because the store was for places like Myrtle Beach, not Pawleys Island. Thus, the father is a representation of a stereotype of the traditional South, which leaves little room for outside influence or consideration for others who are different. (Eerily, the father also represents the isolationist trend rampant in alt right-wing politics, which have a stronghold in conservative states like West Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, and the Carolinas.) Conversely, Josh embodies a new type of South Carolinian — one who appreciates the nature and environment of the small region from which he hails but is willing to explore an identity that challenges traditional conventions.
Of course, Josh is not alone in his identity as a person of otherness in a conformist town. The novel hosts a wide cast of other eccentric characters, including the memorable Spregg. Spregg lives with his inattentive, alcoholic mother and is frequently the ringleader in Josh’s and his friends’ pursuit of alcohol. Chloe, Josh’s love interest, is a rebel with a cause: to not participate in the fundamentalist Christian teaching with which her and Josh’s Baptist church community indoctrinates them. Together, these unlikely friends spawn mayhem from boredom and chaos from order. They also show that, no matter what veneer of social décor and religious edicts a community puts in place, it is frequently the most colorful individuals who make it worth remembering. Their friendship is like a hodge-podge patchwork quilt — one in which the patterns should not, by any means, work together to make the larger quilt beautiful, and yet they do. Thus, the group’s closeness is a gentle lesson in how, by putting aside one’s differences and assumptions and truly taking the time to understand others, a gorgeous mosaic of humanity can take form.
Nonetheless, despite its warnings about social and cultural isolationism, Our Bodies Electric brims with loving nostalgia for a time when kids roamed towns on their bikes well past dark and VHS reigned supreme. The book’s references to Metallica and David Bowie will remind readers of some of pop culture’s greatest eras and icons. Josh’s obsession with Bowie is a testament to the chameleon of rock’s legacy and influence, especially in terms of the liberation Bowie’s art and music offered the LGBTQ community. Just as Bowie experimented with fashion and gender fluidity, so does Josh, whose love for women’s underwear and whose desire to make Chloe a sweater crafted from his bellybutton lint frequently drive his mother into fervent prayer sessions. In a way, Josh becomes his own kind of Southern icon, one reminiscent of real-life Instagram influences like Michael Story (@theappalachianson), a classically trained undertaker who embraces the identity of “hillbilly gothic.”
Like Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr.’s Gay Poems for Red States, Our Bodies Electric is a celebration of the places that attempt to break a person’s spirit and the individuals who dare to be different in all the best ways. It is a brave novel — one that prods boldly at power and social structures which have historically ignored and oppressed those who do not fit neatly into collective expectations. Our Bodies Electric is the South Carolinian version of The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and it is sure to inspire readers for decades to come.
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