The Vast Fields of Ordinary is anything but ordinary!

 So, The Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd isn’t a particularly recent release, Amazon says my version of the book was released in 2011, but there was also apparently a version released in 2009. I didn’t read the book back in 2011 – I barely read books in 2011.

I don’t remember exactly when it was when I first read it, but I remember it being one of those books that immediately shot up into being one of my favourites. Now, after that first time I read it, I put it back on my bookshelf and didn’t touch it for the longest time. So, it just sat there being one of my favourite books, but as time went by, I slowly forgot what happened in the story, and why I loved it so much. I vaguely remembered the main characters, Dade and Alex, and that there was a sub-plot about a girl, Jenny, who went missing, but that went missing.

This blog post comes as the result of me re-reading The Vast Fields of Ordinary to see whether I could recapture what it was exactly that I loved about the book.

Spoiler alert: I did.

So, The Vast Fields of Ordinary follows Dade Hamilton, son of rich parents (I don’t want this to be too formal, hence why the details are so vague) in Iowa, through his last summer before he moves to Michigan for college. Dade is pretty sad, to put it nicely. He has no real friends where he lives, a not-so-great relationship with his parents, and he’s secretly hooking up with one of the jocks at his school, Pablo – who treats him like garbage. So things are going great for him, obviously.

He then ends up going to this party where he runs into a guy, whose name he doesn’t get (it’s Alex), and, because he’s a sad, lonely, homosexual, he immediately develops a crush. And, now to rush through a few more plot points, one of the other characters, Fessica (her real name is Francesca, she just gets called Fessica), basically lies to the school and tells people that she and Dade hooked up at the party, Dade then calls her out for this, and she cries. Did I feel bad for Fessica? No. Homegirl lied and she brought those tears on herself. Anyways, Dade then asks her about the guy from the party and she tells him (Dade) that he (the guy) is called Alex.

I realise this is sort of reading as a book report so far, but I promise this is necessary.

Dade then proceeds to find Alex at the taco place he works and asks to buy pot off of him. Alex is a drug dealer, which is something I probably should have specified. Dade doesn’t just randomly ask to buy drugs from him. But then Alex takes Dade to where he gets his pot from and, I know this is probably going to look bad for me, but this was the point where I began to remember why I loved the book so much.

The thing I loved was that the relationship between Dade and Alex just seemed easy. Like, you know sometimes when you read something, and it feels hard. I know that sounds strange, but I just mean like it feels forced. Dade and Alex’s relationship didn’t feel forced, it was like they, even though they were characters, were meant to come together.

Dade’s world then seems to become a little brighter after he meets Alex, as he also meets Lucy, the lesbian niece of one of Dade’s neighbours. She and Dade become friends, and it’s sort of like a, “Dade finally has another decent queer person (and a friend) to talk to”, kind of moment, and bitch it feels good.

To go on a wildly differing path, everyone in this book seemed sad in their own way. And everyone kind of sucks – as in they seem to show their bad side, not like they’re written badly. Even the characters I wanted to be better, like Fessica, since she was the younger sister of Jessica, the school’s it girl, I thought she (Fessica) would have been better, since she would have understood the loneliness that Dade felt better. Maybe she did, but she still sucked. She still used homophobic slurs against Dade, even when he was extending a branch of friendship to her. Like, Mama, she’s garbage.

(My summary of Fessica/Francesca as a person)

And, even though everyone seemed their own brand of sad, I liked Alex as a character, because he seemed to pull Dade away from his sadness. Dade wasn’t the greatest (as in nicest/warmest) character when he was alone, but when he and Alex got together, some of that sadness and darkness seemed to fade away. I know, from personal experience that getting into a relationship doesn’t make you happy (lol trauma), but Alex made Dade happy, and that, by proxy, made me happy for Dade. Seeing that he was happier, it was like things were on the up for him.

There are certain songs that instil a certain feeling in me. I don’t exactly know what that feeling is actually called, but I’ve created a Spotify playlist of all the songs that give me that feeling. I titled the playlist “Chiffon in the Wind”, which I realise is a strange title out of context, I’m aware of that. But I titled it that because all of the songs give me that feeling, or image, of chiffon blowing in the wind, whether it be day or night. Maybe it’s a whole coming-of-age vibe, I don’t know.

I realise that didn’t seem relevant to anything I've written thus far, but I wanted to mention it because The Vast Fields of Ordinary gives me the exact same vibe as the songs in the playlist, and I don’t know why. Maybe it had something to do with the location, or maybe it was something else. But it was a feeling I felt, nonetheless. I particularly felt it during chapter 11 when Dade and Alex go on their first official date. Alex brings Dade to his great-grandfather’s grave, that was seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Again, I have no idea how those images in the book managed to inspire that feeling, but it did. And I’m very glad it did.

The back end of the book sees summer beginning to end and most of what happens throughout the book fall into place, as if they’re going to resolve themselves.

*Spoiler alert for anyone who wants to read the book or hasn’t read it yet.*

Dade’s parents tell him that they’re going on a trip to Europe to try and fix their marriage. Dade and Alex eventually break up, saying that it’s the best thing for them to do. I don’t remember who specifically says this, but Dade has to leave Cedarville since, excluding Alex, there’s nothing good for him there, and it’s only harming him, so leaving for Michigan for college is the thing he needs. It’s not a sad breakup by any means since they both understand that Dade has to leave, and Alex can’t leave his grandmother.

Oh, and one of the characters dies, and I think maybe Burd wanted us to feel bad for them, but the person who died, even though they had their own issues, was still an awful person throughout the entire book so….?

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. I just wanted to ramble about this book, and how I managed to rediscover what it was that I loved about it the first time I read it. I did that, and I’m happy that I did.

Witty closing statement, you know?