In 1955, James Dean died in a car crash in Paso Robles, California. Despite having made only three films — East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, and Giant — he remained a cult figure long after his death, and came to symbolise the disaffected and rebellious youth of the postwar era.

In The Rebel, Jack Dann asks: What if James Dean hadn’t died in that car crash? What would his life have been like? How would he have affected others? How would he have changed history? It doesn’t seem, at face value, a particularly prepossessing premise for a novel. At least it didn’t for me when I first picked it up to read. I had little knowledge of, or interest in, any of the central characters: James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Colonel Parker, Bobby Kennedy, et al. But Dann is a consummate writer. Have faith in his abilities, and more often than not you’ll be rewarded. And that’s certainly the case with The Rebel.

At first, the James Dean that Dann shows us in The Rebel is the James Dean we are familiar with — rebellious and insouciant:

He flicked his half-finished cigarette in a high arc across the room and wondered if it would start a fire. If it did, he would sit right where he was like a fucking Buddha and die without moving a muscle.

If it didn’t, he would race on Monday.

But then, of course, he has his accident and survives. During the accident, he has a vision of his dead mother, who tells him to “do something wonderful and important” with his life. And it seems, for a while, like he’s trying to do just that, like he’s trying to become a better person. But people don’t change overnight, accident or no, and it quickly becomes clear that he’s still just the same self-centred, drug-addled SOB he was before the accident. Of course, he does change, eventually, over the course of the novel. He grows older, becomes more mature, more thoughtful, more responsible — but these are changes rendered by the passage of time and the accumulation of experience, not by his accident.

Putting issues of characterisation aside, though, Dann is first and foremost a stylist. Not style as in showiness, but style that mirrors, and illuminates, subject. In The Rebel, Dann’s style is a little rough, a little sloppy, but oh so inspired. This isn’t accidental. He’s mimicking the acting style of James Dean himself:

Driving was like dreaming, and the headlights were your eyes all lit up and pure. Jimmy ticked off the towns, as if he and Nick and the smooth breathing rattle groaning Mercedes coupe were one big clock chiming midnight.

This is typical of Dann’s style throughout the novel. There’s a kind of breathlessness to it, a kind of reckless energy. If you’re the kind of reader who nitpicks grammar and usage, though, this could be a very frustrating novel for you. Dann pays short shrift to all the rules your English teachers so carefully drilled into you — but never out of ignorance, always for effect.

I’ve only really got three criticisms of this novel. The first is that it’s too long. There’s not much of a cohesive story arc to The Rebel — which isn’t a criticism in itself, except insofar as there’s 400+ pages of non-traditional, rambling narrative, which in the end became too much for me. The second criticism is that, at times, it tends to focus too much on other characters besides James Dean, particularly Marilyn Monroe. It smacked, a little, of name-dropping. And the final criticism is that the swearing and sex and drug-use and violence seemed, on occasion, a trifle gratuitous. But then, I suspect I’m a bit old-fashioned in that regard. Still, The Rebel isn’t for the kiddies (or even for some adults).

None of which, of course, outweighs the pros of this novel, which are considerable. If you’re looking for something a bit different from the usual fantasy and science fiction fare, The Rebel could just be the book you’re looking for — dark, thought-provoking, stylish, a little rough around the edges, but recklessly energetic and inspired.

This review previously appeared in Visions magazine. Reproduced with permission of the author