Geeks : How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho
Author: Jon Katz
List Price: $12.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0767906993
Publisher: Broadway (20 February, 2001)
Sales Rank: 61,316
Average Customer Rating: 4.31 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 4 out of 5
A modern tale about geeks
When I originally saw the title of the book "How two lost boys rode the internet out of Idaho" I was immediately curious, and indeed this book is very unusual. The book tells the story of Jesse Dailey and Eric Twilegar, 2 self proclaimed Geeks. Eric and Jesse are two teenagers who lived in Idaho in a place which is really as remote as it gets in the US. They did not fit in their school's society, and their only joy was a "Geek club" which was started by a teacher of theirs - and the internet. The author, Jon Katz, was very intriguied with Jesse and Eric after an email correspondence, so he flew to Idaho to meet and interview them. This started a chain of events which led Eric and Jesse to leave Idaho for a search of a better life. The book tells their story.
But that's not all. The book is more than that, it also contains "essays" (I have no other word to describe these) about geekness in general, why there are outcasts in high schools and other interesting related issues.
To summarize: I loved the book! Reading what Eric and Jesse had gone through really made me feel close to them, and the way they grew and matured was truly heartwarming. The geek essays were also very interesting, and gave me a lot food for thought. But more than that, the story of these 2 smart teenagers really is a tale of the internet age - how anybody who is smart, brave and good with computers can make a better life for himself these days. I certainly see a lot of the book in my personal life.
I recommend the book to geeks and non geeks alike, and I wish Eric and Jesse luck everywhere they go to.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Touching, personal, but not perfect
This book's power seems to be more in the strong chord of recognition it rings in geeks everywhere than in its own merits. That isn't to say that it's not a good book -- it's just a little more facile than it needs to be, and it seems to be written more from the standpoint of a manual/bird-guide "identify and understand your geek" than from the real heart of geekdom. It does read a bit like a stretched-out magazine article, and some of the theories and observations put forth by Katz read as the simplistic generalizations of a non-Geek, breaking it down into the same wide lanes of definition that help create the problems of geeks/mundanes friction to begin with. After all, Katz still is limited by the fact that (as he freely admits), he's really merely an observer and not a hardcore geek himself. Still, he does a fine job from that viewpoint, and his careful efforts in learning to understand Geek Culture are apparent. This book will go a long way towards simply making an unknown subculture more understandable, and therefore less threatening to the mainstream. And the sense of relief, sanctuary, and feeling of homecoming that it carries to thousands of geeks everywhere is well worth my enthusiastic recommendation.
Rating: 4 out of 5
"The Net is their only net."
Jon Katz's latest book goes a long way to explain the recently-emerged member of society known as the geek by following two recent high school graduates, Jesse and Eric, out of the hinterlands of Idaho and into the corporate world of Chicago. Through the trials of the two boys, Katz inadvertently finds himself in the middle of the geeks' story. The recent rise and rise of the Geek has been documented in several different ways. Witness "Pirates of Silicon Valley," Robert X. Cringely's columns and shows, the success of Wired (and Slashdot, for that matter) and - lest we forget - the reign of Bill Gates, to name a few examples. No one has delved so deep thus far into the Geek realm as Slashdot's own resident journailst/author Jon Katz.
Straight outta Idaho, Geeks tells the story of Jesse Dailey and Eric Twilegar, two textbook examples of the modern geek. They both work in small retail outlets in nearby microtowns (one in a computer repair shop the other in an Office Max - the closest thing to geek-friendly jobs in the area), are ostracized by the local Mormon moral majority, spend most of their time online and are complete outcasts for the most part. If it wasn't for one hip teacher who sees the obvious unharnessed potential of these two and their few friends and starts a Geek Club, Jesse and Eric might end up like so many other geeks: completely overlooked and unrecognized for their talents. By putting added emphasis on this aspect of the story, Katz brings to light the gaping hole in our education system through which most geeks fall. And as he showed in spades with his "Hellmouth" columns, lately that hole has been of the 'black hole' variety (see also the countless email messages from the Hellmouth included in Geeks).
On the flipside, Jesse and Eric are (like most other geeks) multitasking geniuses. They read, listen to music, chat with friends online, talk on the phone, download files, trade MP3s, as well as eat and drink, all while sitting in front of their computers. A dizzying deluge of information screaming hither and thither on the screen, over the phone lines, through the modem and through the air. Extreme concentration and juggling skills as such are typically rewarded highly when they are known about.
So, post-Hellmouth, Jesse and Eric realize that they can go anywhere and that anywhere else would probably be better. With minor guidance from Katz, the boys end up in Chicago. Jon Katz draws lines and crosses them throughout the book. He wants to document the story, but at the same time he identifies very strongly with Jesse and Eric. He doesn't want to see them fail despite their high hopes and thin ropes, and as he says, "the Net is their only net." In addition to their tribulations at school, Jesse and Eric have minimal home lives and suffer a severe lack of family involvement in their decisions. As he documents their move from small town to big city, Katz struggles to stay out of the story. But he flies into Chicago to be there the day of Jesse's first job interview and he goes to bat for both boys when it comes to their aspirations for college. Making sure there were two less geeks lost in the cracks of America became more important to Katz than the integrity of his report. A fact he openly admits repeatedly in the book.
During his following of the story of these two geeks, Katz finds that he fits the description of "geek" himself as much as either of them do. Now if only more older geeks would step up for the new generation of geeks instead of ostracizing them. The book Geeks is both good read and a good example. Good job, Jon Katz. Twice.
Book Index