Leaper by Geoffrey Wood Published by: Water Brook Press (2007) 304 pages Rating: 10/10 Buy it Now:

If this is a first novel, I can't wait to read the second. Geoffrey Wood has made a stunning (and hilarious) debut with this novel about a not-necessarily-super hero.

The superhero genre has been turned on its ear before (such as with the movie Mystery Men), but never like this. Leaper is the narrative of James, a lifelong coffeehouse worker who suddenly discovers that he can leap. Err... that is, he discovers that he can teleport from one place to another. Only he insists on calling it "leaping," which only serves to add to the humor when he tries to explain it to anyone.

James is hardly the ideal of heroism. Recently divorced, searching for meaning in his life, chock full of caffeine, and barely maintaining his grip on sanity, he doesn't take to his newfound powers very well...

Written from his point of view, the story sounds like it's over-caffeinated, too, as our "hero" jumps from thought to thought with absolute reckless abandonment. Wood's goofy protagonist at times seems totally unhinged... and yet he manages to make us care about him and understand how he feels. So much so that when disaster strikes, the story comes to a screeching halt. We don't want to read any more. Yet we're compelled to do so. That's brilliance.

I've seen at least one comment about the great opening of this novel, but the funniest part for me was the opening for chapter two. I'm still laughing about it. I don't know if Geoffrey Wood was deliberately paying homage to a bit of narration from one of my favorite (and little-known) comic book stories, or if he came up with it on his own. In either case, it's still hilarious.

Go read this. And then read it to someone that can laugh and cry with you. Highly Recommended.