I’ve just this weekend finished reading Adam Knave’s Stay Crunchy in Milk. Adam had described it to me as a pop-culture fairy tale, which at first worried me, since I’m not well-versed in pop culture — but if you’re similarly situated, fear not, this is a tale that transcends the trappings.

The thing about reading Knave is that nothing ever is as it appears. Yes, you can read his work on one level and be all happy, because he follows the ‘Entertain first’ rule. Stays Crunchy in Milk is indeed entertaining: you get a buddy film, an adventure romp, a often laugh-out-loud off kilter view of the world that surrounds us; it’s all good.

But, much as Knave did in Strange Angel
being entertained is only the first delight: Knave makes you think, as a human and as a writer.

I want to address each of these separately. Stays Crunchy in Milk is really a well-dressed character study; although I’d say we’re examining the growth of one entity that manifests through three characters rather than one individual character living and growing. The relationship between the three main characters (TC, Wereberry, and especially Choco-ra) is as dynamic and nuanced as each individual character; ironic in a book about the search for a missing fourth that the fourth principal is in fact the gestalt of the three brought together. I’m particularly fond of stories that examine not only why we act, but why sometimes we don’t act: Knave did a good job here.

And as for what you’ll learn as a writer from reading Knave’s Stays Crunchy in Milk? It’s a good examination of how to do really complex things while appearing to be almost pathologically simple. Naive characters are hard to render believably; perhaps the fairy tale tropes help Knave here — but the rate at which the trio grows and becomes self-aware is appropriate, well-paced, and signified by an increasing complexity in supporting language. That’s subtle. That’s really well done. I don’t know if it was conscious: you can see the hand of the author restrained in the simplistic beginning; as the tale progresses, the language ramps up to echo the increasingly dynamic and complex set of experiences the trio is going through.

It’s definitely a high-concept book; I think this will make it a fairly niched title. But if you give it a shot, it may be the sleeper secret discovery of your reading year. Definitely, it is a book that will stick with you; stray thoughts it provokes will poke you long after you’ve put it down.

And you’ll never look at your kitchen cupboards the same way again, I’ll tell you that for free.

Here’s the review I did on Amazon:

What at first glance appears to be a sugary simple tale turns out to be a deftly-layered exploration of the hero’s journey. Pop culture references, cleverly described from oblique angles so as to provide the reader with continual starts of recognition as they move through the text, enhance this examination of what drives us: the need for love, the need for control, and especially the need to belong. Knave accomplishes all of this while delivering a fun read; recommended — but be aware you may need to read this one twice to get everything Knave’s packed in there.

There’s a little bit of everything: buddy film meets road trip meets biting social commentary with overtones of Zen parable; I’m particularly enamored of the persistent need to find ‘the other’ — in this case, the elusive Cherrygeist — and Knave’s examination of the role we all take in creating our own realities. Don’t put this down as simple or gimmicky: the careful reader will discover that it is anything but.

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