YAYA (yet another young adult) Fiction ID

March 27, 2012 5:46 AM

Please help me identify this young adult novel (comatose teen explores afterlife with long-dead caveman).

I’ve been googling plot elements from this book for years, and the closest I’ve come is a Yahoo Answers question that confirms my vague description but offered no book suggestions.

It isn’t among the afterlife stories discussed in this askmefi.

The book (as I can recall): Read during the late 1980s or early 1990s. Possibly purchased through the Scholastic book sale. Protagonist was a young teenage boy who had been in a car (?) accident. While in a coma, he awakens in a sort of afterlife/limbo. He teams up with a dead teen girl and a man who had been in the afterlife since neolithic times. They travel the land of the dead trying to get the boy back to his life. That’s all I recall.

posted by audi alteram partem to media & arts (3 answers total)

Possible spoiler alert: did they eventually get the boy back to his life in modern times and then the man completely freaks out? I think I read this in mid-1980s. I can't offer up a title, but I thought I'd add this potential plot point, in case it helps.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 9:17 AM on March 27, 2012

I have no memory beyond what I included in the original question, so I can't confirm or deny. But thanks for the additional plot element, and if anyone else remembers anything about the plot, please post.

I think the book was part of a series, so Chaussette's recollection may be from later in the series.
posted by audi alteram partem at 10:55 AM on March 27, 2012

I checked with a friend of mine that runs a sci-fi bookstore that I worked at. He says it sounds ' like a William Sleator of plot, but not one of the novels I've read'.

Hope that helps.
posted by ladyriffraff at 1:24 PM on April 20, 2012