Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz Turns Novelist with "Gray"

I cannot say that I am a fan of Pete Wentz's band Fall Out Boy. Since I am not all that familiar with their music, I cannot critique it, but the band was extremely popular throughout the 2000s, so they must have been doing something right. Wentz himself has sort of fallen off the radar after many years in the spotlight, but now seems to be ready to be front and center once again with his new book, Gray (MTV Books), along with the recently announced reunion of Fall Out Boy.

Gray is (possibly) a semi-autobiographical story about a young musician whose band slowly finds success and eventually signs with a major label, which is life changing in many ways. Wentz, with James Montgomery, produces a very introspective, descriptive and contemporary narrative. He expresses himself through the use of poetry while musing about the most minute things in life in this stream of consciousness pseudo-diary, which the author compiled while touring. How much is really about Wentz himself is not known, but his vivid descriptions may make readers wonder if he is talking about himself from start to finish.

Aside from the narrator, there are just a few major characters introduced in Gray. "Her" is the narrator's love interest and is featured prominently throughout. They have many issues to work through and break up more than once, but they keep finding their way back to one another. The toxicity of their relationship is apparent to readers, but clearly not to the characters. In the narrator's case, he hurts Her very badly, but they just cannot quit each other. I am not sure that they are even in love, but their co-dependence appears unconquerable.

The characters are not necessarily likable, but I found myself rooting for them to have the strength to move on and get their lives together. Of course, inexperience and bad decisions frequently accompany youth, so I suppose this is a case of hurry up and wait, but the damage done in the interim may not be able to be fixed. I was also struck by the lack of attachment to the past, such as the house that the narrator grew up in and promises never to return to, even though some of the memories revealed are positive ones. The younger generation is seemingly moving beyond being tied down by the distant past, in favor of having the freedom to do their own thing. Tradition and sentimentality seem to be going the way of the dinosaur. That is not a judgement, but simply an observation.

What surprised me most about Gray was the author's ability to hold my attention throughout, even though there really is no central plot. The main character meanders from place to place and manages to find drama almost everywhere he goes. Indeed, there is a lot going on throughout the 200 plus pages and the main character appears to be heading somewhere, but he does not seem to know his destination yet. Perhaps that was the inspiration for the title.