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An Amalgamation of Real Life
1986 is a nostalgic and poignant journey through childhood’s highs and lows, weaving humor, heartbreak, and haunting realism into a vivid tapestry of suburban life in the titular year. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
When you look back at your childhood, there is always a series of key moments that stand out. For this book, I wanted to weave together those moments in a way that felt organic and captured both the feeling of the 1980s and the dreamlike way they exist in my memory. Though the stories are all fiction, the emotions, imagery, and characters they explore come from an amalgamation of real life.
The vignettes are so vivid. How did you approach balancing nostalgia with universal relatability in your storytelling?
I have always read and noticed myself that the most effective way to achieve universality in storytelling is through specificity. Which is nice, because then all I need to do as a writer is delve into my own experiences and hold nothing back. The reason this works is because at heart I think we all value the same things.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I dedicated this book to my family and that was always front of mind when writing these stories. Family and home are what the main character keeps returning to throughout the book. The project was started at a hard time in our country, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and just after January 6th, 2021. Like many, I was feeling as if the world was coming apart at the seams. Maybe subconsciously, I wanted to revisit a time when everyone was together and celebrate the goodness of that.
Were there any moments or characters in the book that proved particularly challenging to write, and why?
Yes, the most challenging thing was figuring out how to render complex situations and emotions in a voice that felt true to the age of the main character, since the stories are written in first person. The narration does go back and forth between being a child and an adult reflecting on past memories, but I wanted to keep the events themselves subjective to the eyes of a child, to keep things immediate and therefore powerful. One of the stories stumped me for months in that regard.
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1986: Stories
Will Stepp’s 1986 is a nostalgic tapestry of childhood and adolescence, stitched together through a series of vignettes that brim with charm, humor, and raw emotion. The book follows a narrator’s youthful misadventures, from the mundane to the extraordinary, set against the backdrop of suburban America in the titular year. It’s a bittersweet journey through lawns mowed with finicky mowers, secret ponds discovered in forbidden fields, and friendships forged and frayed over the course of long afternoons.
The writing is stellar, pulling you straight into its world with rich sensory details and authentic dialogue. The interplay of nostalgia and immediacy is where the book shines most. Stepp’s prose made me feel like I was right there, watching Dusty the horse lumber toward an apple offering, and the thunder of her hooves charging across the field had my pulse racing. Stepp captures childhood’s blend of terror and thrill with uncanny accuracy.
But it’s not just the storytelling that captivated me—it’s the insight into relationships. Take “New Knife,” for example. The protagonist’s earnest desire to bond with his grandfather and the painful realization of having inadvertently hurt him is heartbreakingly relatable. The green pocketknife, cleaned and restored with care, stands as a poignant symbol of love and misunderstanding. It’s the kind of story that urges you to reflect on your own moments of familial friction.
What struck me most about 1986 is how it doesn’t shy away from the darker corners of childhood. “Mail Walk” dives into feelings of alienation, anger, and eerie surrealism. The protagonist’s disorienting walk through the apartment complex culminates in a scene that blurs the line between reality and nightmare. This chapter chilled me, not just because of its haunting imagery, but because it spoke to the universal fear of being left behind or forgotten.
Stepp’s ability to weave such a mix of light and shadow into his storytelling makes this book an emotional rollercoaster. It’s perfect for anyone who’s ever looked back at their childhood with a mix of longing and unease. Fans of reflective, slice-of-life stories like Tobias Wolff’s This Boy’s Life or even films like Stand by Me will find much to love here. While some of the stories’ slower moments might test a reader’s patience, the emotional payoffs make the journey worthwhile.
1986 is a beautifully crafted tribute to the messiness and magic of growing up. I’d recommend it to anyone nostalgic for their own “good old days” or curious about life in a time that feels simultaneously distant and familiar.
Pages: 127 | ASIN: B0DJ9TSC93
LITERARY TITAN 