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James Pursaill
posted 8 September 2006

'Donald Delpe is a "terrible teen" by default, as obsessed with sex, music, videogames and drugs as the rest of his gang, but he is also suffering from a life-threatening form of leukemia. Famous psychologist Dr Adrian King is brought in to help - but will he break the rules, betray the parents' trust and risk everything to help Donald? Or will Donald be the one to save the doctor?'

Yawn. So the shrink brings out the cultured, sensitive side to a troubled teenager, while the teenager teaches the adult to 'chill out', and gives him a more relaxed outlook on life. Stop me when this starts to sound original. So Donald comes out of his embittered shell and makes a miraculous recovery, while Adrian loosens up and finally asks out the shy girl who trundles round the library, right? Oh, how cynically wrong I was.

What's really enjoyable about Death of a Superhero, the fourth novel by New Zealand author Anthony McCarten, is that it is genuinely surprising. In a brave move, the author takes an admittedly hackneyed theme and gives it several unexpected twists. Every character seemed to be some sort of two-dimensional, comic book cliché (I doubt it was meant to be ironic): the embittered teenager, the concerned mother, and the world weary psychologist. Yet the story they find themselves in is both bleak and satirical, in all the right places. The resulting hybrid is often humourous, compelling and eventually satisfying - and yet a glance at the last pages would make you think twice. Donald, our cynical protagonist, dies only a few days after discovering a new found sense of happiness and strength. The eminent psychologist ends the novel publicly disgraced - and separated from his wife to boot. Finishing a book with this ending feeling uplifted is a testament to McCarten's talent. In reality Donald has finally found peace, and Adrian has found the strength free himself from his cheating wife and unfulfilling job.

My only real quibble with this book is the author's constant attempts at originality - as if the basic story itself weren't enough to constitute a novel. For instance, to write out Donald's comic book creations in regular installments, as a comic script. This was done better in Richard Braughtigan's Dreaming of Babylon. His cheap, film noir detective is constantly slipping into rich, sensual fantasies - but crucially, often ends up crashing cars and missing important calls because of it. Because Donald's fantasies don't really affect the story, the sequences feel dislocated - cropping up frequently as a distraction from the more compelling story it is woven into. Other attempts at originality, such as writing the whole book in the style of a film script, were similarly perplexing. The constant pop culture references were extremely hit and miss. References to popular games like Grand Theft Auto felt painfully forced - I never thought for a second McCarten had ever played the game, just taken notes from kids who had. However, others slip in much more naturally, to hilarious effect: 'Your going to fuck Lara Croft!' remarks Donald's friend, as he sees a picture of the hooker Adrian has arranged for him to meet (bet you didn't see that one coming...).

Death of a Superhero is, at its core, a funny, uplifting novel about growing up and moving on with our lives. The only thing McCarten needs to learn is that this was all this novel needed to be - and ditch the attempts to be more 'original' or 'cool' - because they only detracted from a strong story that isn't half as clichéd as the synopsis would have you believe.