The book "Adios, Nirvana", released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt a year ago October, is due out in paperback by Jan. 10. The author, Conrad Wesselhoeft, a Fauntleroy resident, set the book's story, considered young adult fiction with crossover appeal, in a variety of West Seattle locations, including Easy Street Records, Schmitz Park, Admiral Way, and Delridge Way. A view from under the West Seattle Bridge is depicted on the newly designed cover by well-known Hungarian-born illustrator, Istvan Banyai. His work has appeared in "Rolling Stone", "Time", and on the cover of "The New Yorker".

In the West Seattle Herald's previous article on "Adios, Nivana", when it first came out, we described the story as a “first-person confessional” by Jonathan, a gifted writer, darn good guitar player, and high school junior who wins a statewide poetry contest, beating out college entrants. He is close to self-destructing, due to a toxic cocktail of family dysfunction, teen angst, Red Bull, NoDoz tablets, insomnia, and the recent, unexpected death of his identical twin brother.

The book comes out in a German-language edition on Feb. 10. The translation was done by Karsten Singelmann, who has translated books by John LeCarre, John Grisham, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, and others.

The story's flattering references to Eddie Vedder earned Wesselhoeft a free ticket to see Vedder at his recent concert at Benaroya Hall. Apparently the local rocker appreciated the dialogue.

Wesselhoeft did a lot of reading, and working with teens, as a Peace Corps volunteer in Western Samoa (now Samoa) in the late 1970's, which helped prepare him for taking on this literary project and seeing the world through teenaged eyes. (He also raised his own teens.)

"Samoa was almost a zero-technology environment, other than a scratchy radio playing mostly BBC," Wesselhoeft recalled. "I did a hell of a lot of reading, I devoured the most challenging books of my life, the 'Moby Dick' types. That was magnificent entertainment. I was also entranced by Michener's 'Hawaii'.

"I taught English and literature to the equivalent of 11th and 12th-graders, also some 7th and 8th-graders. It was a real cultural chasm because they didn't really have a lot of background in the English (from England) idea of writing so to read 'Great Expectations' when their entire lives were spent in a balmy climate under palm trees when most have never left the island, it was a stretch for them, for me too.

"'The Catcher in the Rye', 'The Time Machine', these books were marginally relevant to Polynesian students who couldn't identify with these guys other than the general trajectory of a teenager's life of a search for self, and the common experience of rebelliousness. The idea of wandering around New York City like 'The Catcher in the Rye' when you grow up on this small Island, how can you relate? But that was our mission, our orders, that the New Zealand government imposed on us to teach."

Wesselhoeft said he would have preferred teaching them their own literature, such as Polynesian folk tales, history, and fiction.

"At the end of my stay we did read 'Pouliuli' which means 'the darkness' by well-known Samoan novelist Albert Wendt," he said.

"The Peace Corps attracted rebels, artists, and some who were sort of dreamers," he said. "I'd probably fit into the last category. The dreamer wasn't in lock step with the majority of people getting things organized, getting things done. After reading a novel, I had to walk in the sunset and think about it. I think that's true with a lot of writers. You don't feel like you're a fit and you're trying to understand that. Eventually you do. You say, 'To hell with it. I'm not going to try being somebody I'm not.' You decide to be who you are and things kind of fall into place."