The Momentous Expiration of Tremmy Sinclair

This notable novel is reminiscent of a John Green book. The writing and pacing are superb, the characters are totally believable, the humour is outstanding and the plotline fires on all cylinders beginning to end. Character arcs are clearly visible. If not for the ending (more about that in a moment), it would be worthy of five stars.

The Momentous Expiration of Tremmy Sinclair features uber-rich, spoiled students at an elite private school who love to party it up, pull pranks and engage in activities of dubious legality and morality. The students’ sense of entitlement is in the stratosphere, and each has raised being a jerk to an artform. You’re not meant to like them, although their antics will have you laughing out loud.

The writing is rich.

I knock softly and ease the door open. The headmaster sits with his hands folded on a desk that he brags a duke once owned. Massive, lion-clawed, leather-topped. The dome of his head shines like the spherical trophy for the Most Globally Active Students; his braid, banded at the tip in platinum, curls around his neck… As I enter, all smiles dim by half. The smell of the mints the headmaster sucks reminds me of hand cleanser.

Just one student, 17-year-old Tremmy, begins to see himself and his fellow students for what they are – only because he has just learned he has terminal cancer and a few months to live. Together with a scholarship student who did not grow up privileged and has a philosophical bent along with a hefty chip on her shoulder, Tremmy begins a descent to real life – and death.

This story is told in first-person from the point of view of Tremmy, with language and scenarios appropriate to older teens and young adults. Despite the fact that the novel touches on a mess of heavy topics – suicide, death, illness, medical assistance in dying, sexual assault and racism – it’s outrageously funny till near the end (when you’ll need tissues). The author has a sharp wit, indeed a gift for teen humour. Tremmy refers to his brain tumour as “peanut”. When contemplating his mates’ personalities, he imagines sarcastic obituaries for them, a fun and effective contribution to the novel’s flow. The teen barbs are prize-winning.
“Aren’t you the supreme saint suckass of suckasses. Too bad your IQ is that of a beheaded tick. Didn’t realize that dying gave you the right to be a raging suppository…”

“You’re right. Dying doesn’t. But I do have every right. Because I’m you. Because I was you. I was normal. Healthy. I was lucky to be better than normal… I was excellent and an ass. And I had a really far way to fall.”

What exactly is the author trying to accomplish? “It’s my belief that to conquer our fear of death we need to talk about it,” he has said. “This is my book about death and privilege. It's my contribution to social justice lit.”

There are touches of sci-fi in that drones are everywhere, often recording the students and getting them in trouble. Tremmy’s best friend has a jetpack that steals pumpkins from farmers’ fields, and the school’s chapel has a robotic “listener” who doles out advice and tunes on request.

My only issue with this novel is where the main character arc (Tremmy recognizing that he has been a jerk and that his fellow students still are jerks) prompts new and odd goals in this protagonist. Trying to convert his classmates is understandable, even if a seeming waste of time. Trying to force them to talk about death and dying is also understandable, if also a seeming waste of time. Fighting to die at school rather than home is less logical, even selfish in terms of where this leaves his grieving parents. And yet it elicits more empathy from his classmates which nominally achieves their character arc. Fighting for medical assistance in dying is an interesting angle, a worthy issue with which to confront readers.

But the actual ending – a tear-jerker, an unexpected twist, original – left me more befuddled than satisfied. I felt let down. I felt that a promising, exuberant, otherwise powerful novel had just crashed and burned in any moral sense. It felt wrong-headed. I’ll be vague so as to not spring a spoiler: What occurred was in no way going to achieve Tremmy’s goal of pushing his friend onto a better path (in my opinion). If it was revenge rather than a conversion attempt, that seems a sour note on which to end things. If it was something else, I didn’t get it. Maybe others will.