Kester’s review of Adam Levin’s The Instructions (from the always dependable McSweeney’s press) is the first of several from our staff. The book has really taken hold here at BookPeople, and to give you a sense of it’s immensity and presence (it’s a real big book), we’ll publish several different perspectives.
I know what it’s like to believe a thing that lots of people think is crazy to believe. In my case, it is that there is a God, that that God has a Son, and that that Son died and then, three days later, wasn’t dead anymore. It is the craziest thing that I believe wholeheartedly.
I mention this, because it shapes how I come at a book like Adam Levin’s The Instructions. That isn’t to say that you have to be religious or even to believe in God to enjoy it. You don’t. But it made me empathize with Gurion Macabee (a boy who may or may not be the messiah) all the more. This is the story of a boy who struggles to know what it is he’s meant to do and who it is he’s meant to be. A boy who feels a high degree of confidence that he is the messiah, but a willingness to admit that he can’t really know until he knows. You know?
It’s that kind of struggle, a knowing unknowing, that make faith the exciting adventure that it is. I’m pretty sure I’m right…but what if I’m wrong? I have to live into the truth of what I believe in order to discover whether it is true, but what if I give my whole life to that truth only to discover it’s a lie? This is the risk of faith. To watch that risk play out in the life and mind of a twelve-year-old boy is a marvelous and sometimes frightening thing.
And kudos go to Adam Levin for delving so deftly into the heart and mind of a twelve-year-old boy. Levin captures the thoughts patterns, the voice patterns, the confidences and lack of confidence. Twelve is an age that is wrought with insecurities and yet an age when our sense of what is right and true can be unshakable. An age when we’re never more sure of our own righteousness, even if we aren’t always sure that we’re right. This is what Gurion wrestles with and we wrestle along with him.
The Instructions is brilliant for a lot of reasons; the main one being that Levin leaves room for us to draw our own conclusions. No two readers will feel exactly the same way about this story and its protagonist. Some won’t agree at all. Some will dismiss Macabee as misguided, others will find that more difficult to do. Some will simply call him “crazy.” others will be reminded of the “crazy” things they themselves believe. Hopefully, all will be challenged to think and to feel and to wonder.
And, if this sounds like a story so epic as to be daunting (the 1000+ pages may feel daunting as well), it is also worth mentioning that The Instructions is funny. Sometimes it’s wry and sometimes ridiculous. Sometimes the chuckle comes with an ache and sometimes a guffaw bursts through.
This, again, is why The Instructions is brilliant. Levin reminds us that discovering you might be the messiah would be both a holy and hilarious thing. By doing so, even his moments of irreverence are imbued with a kind of reverence. It makes for a powerful story, one I am confident that you will enjoy.
-Kester Smith
BookPeople 
For the record, Gurion is 10, not 12. Consider this a formal correction.