“You expect some kind of darkness,” says Rabindranath Maharaj, describing the typical Canadian immigrant novel. “And you have somebody … encountering all sorts of discrimination and realizing, through some inner fortitude, that he has something to offer.”

The 54-year-old author, a native of Trinidad who came to Canada in 1992, makes it clear that books of that ilk hold no interest for him. Though his latest novel, The Amazing Absorbing Boy (published in January by Knopf Canada), follows the template of the classic immigrant story to an extent, it’s also an attempt to add some youthful snap and levity to the genre. The book is written from the perspective of Samuel, a 17-year-old Trinidadian teen who, after the death of his mother, moves to Toronto to live with his father in a Regent Park housing complex slated for demolition. After discovering that his father wants nothing to do with him, Samuel wanders the city on his own, taking odd jobs and encountering larger than life personalities whom he fantasizes to be the comic book superheroes and villains he grew up reading about.

“I wanted to show a different angle to the way immigrants view Canada,” says Maharaj. “Not only as a place where you encounter stereotypes and clichés, but where you have fascinating things happening at every corner.”

Maharaj’s own immigrant journey began when, in his late thirties, he came with his wife and three children from Trinidad to New Brunswick to do a master’s degree in creative writing. After graduating, he headed back home, but only for a year. When his dissertation – the work that would become his debut novel, Homer in Flight – was published by Goose Lane Editions, he decided to return to New Brunswick to pursue writing. After a divorce in 1998, Maharaj was on the move again. Not unlike the main character in his new novel, he headed to a place where he had no established community – Ajax, Ontario, in the suburbs of Toronto.

The idea for The Amazing Absorbing Boy first came to Maharaj in 2006, during a commute from Ajax to the Toronto Reference    Library, where he was then working as writer-in-residence. Riding on the GO Train and the subway, he observed his fellow passengers. “They looked so tired and seemed to not have a connection to anything around them,” he recalls. “They were just so focused on getting to work. [But then] I’d feel that, wait a minute, if I go and have a conversation with that guy, I’m sure he’d tell me that some hit man from Argentina is after his family.”

This kind of imaginative thinking led to the outlandish band of characters Samuel meets in the city. Early in the novel, Samuel pretends that the commuting workers are Mole Men, a reference to a race of people in Superman comics who live underground and come out only at night. One character, a man named Dr. Bat who regularly visits the gas station where Samuel works, speaks entirely in odd, enigmatic phrases. “I am an observer and collector of rash views coerced on my people for eons,” says Dr. Bat in one scene, leading Samuel to fantasize that he is talking to the Watcher from The Fantastic Four.

The fact that The Amazing Absorbing Boy is not the usual immigrant novel is apparent from its cover, which features a graphic novel-style illustration by Canadian artist Michael Cho. Reminiscent of recent bestselling U.S. titles like Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and Jonathan Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude, the cover of The Amazing Absorbing Boy was specifically designed to appeal to two sometimes hard-to-reach demographics: comics fans and teens.

According to Knopf editor Diane Martin, the cover concept came from designer Jennifer Lam. “She said, ‘You know all the graphic geeks, they keep in touch and need to know what’s going on in their world,’” says Martin, adding that Knopf plans to market the book directly to comic book stores. “We’re hoping this could bring some new readers to Rabin.” There is also hope that the 17-year-old narrator could help Maharaj make inroads into the YA market. “Our academic and library sales rep thinks it could appeal to younger readers, and she’ll be talking to high school teachers about it,” Martin says.

Maharaj himself is not a graphic novel nerd – though he did grow up reading comic books – and he says he didn’t write the book to cash in on the burgeoning graphic novel market. According to Maharaj, his inspiration came from an older group of immigrant writers who employed a lighter, more satirical tone than those of today. “In the Caribbean in the 1960s, I remember reading works by Trinidadian novelists who lived in England, who moved there before Trinidad gained independence,” says Maharaj, adding that these writers – Samuel Selvon, George Lamming, and V.S. Naipaul – “tried to transform their tribulations into moments of levity.”

For Maharaj, the key to capturing that lighter touch was his decision to tell the story from a teenager’s point of view. “I chose a young boy as the protagonist because I wanted someone who was naive and innocent and resilient,” he says. “Someone filled with dreams of the place and of himself. I wanted someone who was a reflection of Canada.”