My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf

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My Friend Damhmer
by Derf Backderf

One of the books I read this week was Derf Backderf’s graphic novel, My Friend Dahmer, an Alex Award book from the 2013 list. It provides a chilling account of the author’s interactions with a socially awkward classmate who would grow up to be one of the most notorious serial killers.  Derf’s black and white illustrations work incredible effectively with his prose to recount his recollections of his encounters with Jeff Dahmer, mainly from their years as sophomores until they graduated from Revere High School. In this memoir (researched meticulously using interviews with other high school friends and neighbors, FBI files of Dahmer’s crimes and numerous interviews with profilers and psychiatrists, newspaper accounts, and other sources), Derf points out how Dahmer’s odd and troubling behavior somehow managed to fly under the radar of the adults in Dahmer’s life: school teachers and administrators never noticed anything unusual in his behavior above and beyond that of a typical burn-out student from that era, and his habitual drinking and skipping class mostly went unremarked; his parents were too wrapped up in their acrimonious divorce to notice Jeff’s fascination with road kill or his spiraling alcoholism. It’s only his fellow students, members of the Dahmer Fan Club, who at first encourage his bizarre spastic episodes, that ultimately one by one realize there is something wrong with this guy. Derf’s most memorable episode where he realized Dahmer had serious issues was when he witnessed him guzzle a six-pack of beers in the back of the car on his way to play spastic at the town mall for money that some of the high school kids had pooled together. Another friend of Derf’s recounts an episode where he invited Dahmer to his dad’s pond; Dahmer caught a fish and just cut it to pieces instead of throwing it back in the pond as he’d been instructed. Derf’s graphic novel lays the blame at all the adults in Jeff’s life who could have intervened in some way, but didn’t. Derf writes in the intro, “It’s my belief that Dahmer didn’t have to wind up a monster, that all those people didn’t have to die horribly, if only the adults in is life hadn’t been so inexplicably, unforgivingly, incomprehensively clueless and/or indifferent. Once Dahmer kills, however—and I can’t stress this enough—my sympathy for him ends. He could have turned himself in after that first murder. He could have put a gun to his head.” Derf’s graphic novel is an unflinching account of a kid who fell between the cracks, whose mental problems went undiagnosed and untreated, until he became the monster who would kill Steven Hicks, a hitch-hiking teen from a neighboring town.  This final descent into madness took place during the six-week period when Dahmer was abandoned by his mother and before his father, who had left right before the divorce, moved back in. Ultimately, Derf explains in the various notes after the book, Jeffery Dahmer would go on to kill 16 more victims while living in Milwaukee; a 17th managed to escape and bring police attention to Dahmer.

As the book mostly recounts Dahmer’s teen years, it’s not surprising that this dark memoir would have teen appeal and be awarded an Alex Award.  It’s well researched, chillingly recounted, and creepily illustrated, though it’s worth noting that Derf is not at all sensationalistic in his visual imagery (it could easily have been much more gory and Derf chooses to avoid that).  It’s worth noting that Derf credits underground comix legend Robert Crumb as one visual influence to his art style. This is a book that takes an unwavering and nuanced look at a troubled teen who ultimately went over the brink.

The Physics of Responsibility

Brown, Molly. The Physics of Responsibility: Alternate Worlds and Adolescent Choices. Mousaion, 2011, 28:2
http://repository.up.ac.za/bitstream/handle/2263/19825/Brown_Physics%282011%29.pdf?sequence=1

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In her article, “The Physics of Responsibility: Alternate Worlds and Adolescent Choices”, Molly Brown concludes that Diana Wynne Jones and Phillip Pullman both use the concept of heterotopia as a way to discuss the infinite possibilities of adolescence. Heterotopia, as Brown uses it, refers to “a move away from unitary or even a binary conception of the universe towards an acceptance of the possibility… that we may, in fact, be surrounded by seemingly endless number of dissonant and dissimilar world” (Brown, p. 2). In Fantasy series like Jones’ Chrestomanci series and Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, the fantasy worlds from which the protagonists live are only part of a much largest tapestry of interwoven worlds, an infinite possibility of worlds sometimes like or sometimes dissimilar from their own. In these fantastical multiverses, Brown implies, the authors present “a shifting perspective of limitless possibilities that mirror both the enormous potential and the terrifying insecurities of adolescence” (Brown, p.8).  Brown writes, “Finally, too, it would seem that both Jones and Pullman use heterotopia not only to reflect the liminal uncertainties of adolescence, but to question and reshape what Tolkien calls “eucatastrophe” (1977[1964]:70), the “happily ever after” that is perhaps, in the end, the most illusory element of all fantasy. By rejecting this comforting and traditional narrative formula, these innovative writers show their readers that life is not a story to be neatly resolved at a single point, but a continuous struggle to make and preserve meaning both for ourselves and for others” (Brown, p. 11). The challenge for teens is to turn their backs on all the different choices that they are not choosing, and instead embrace and fully experience the single world they are making for themselves. The challenge of adolescence, as presented by these two authors, is to learn to live a single life to its fullest. Maturation and adulthood come with the closing of possibilities and acceptance of the life choices one makes.

Little Brother by Cory Doctorw

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Little Brother
by Cory Doctorow

One of the books that I read this past week was Cory Doctorow’s novel Little Brother.  In it, Marcus Yallow and three of his best friends, Jolu, Daryl, and Van are skipping school to play their favorite Alternative Reality Game (ARG) the afternoon a terrorist attack destroys the Bay Bridge in San Francisco.  The four are detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and treated as suspect in the bombing.  Marcus resists giving his captors passwords to his phone and email, and they immediately respond by increasing their pressure tactics on him.  Marcus eventually cracks, giving up his passwords and phone passkey, and three of them are released.  Daryl, however, is not.  For the bulk of the novel, Marcus is unsure if Daryl is still detained, but he vows to bring down the DHS and bring their torture tactics to light.  Once home, he doesn’t tell his parents about the DHS detention, and he discovers his laptop has been bugged.  He then decides to hack a free Xbox Universal with a freeware OS, ParanoidLinux, and begins to distribute DVDs to help other do the same.  This becomes the Xnet, one of the last truly secure networks.  Marcus and the Xnetters constantly find ways to disrupt and undermine DHS’s escalating surveillance and monitoring tactics. Marcus’ hope is that by adding sand in the ointment, the general population will realize that DHS’s tactics aren’t making San Francisco any safer, they are simply repealing civil liberties for the sake of security theater.  Through Jolu, Marcus meets Ange Carvelli, a fellow Xnetter and love interest. The two decide to stage a press release within one of the MMORPGs in Xnet, but the efforts seem to backfire as the press takes large parts of his and others’ explanations for their actions out of context. After discovering that Daryl is very much alive and still in the hands of the DHS, Marcus Marcus then decides to come clean to his parents about his DHS detention, and his mother seeks out the help of an investigative reporter his parents know, Barbara Stratford.  Along with Daryl’s father, who had previously assumed his son was killed in the attacks, Marcus and his parents meet Barbara and explain everything that they know about the DHS detention facility on Treasure Island. Barbara warns that she will investigate further to corroborate his story, but it is out of his hands and she will write the story as she sees fit for The Bay Guardian.  She’ll give Marcus a warning before she goes public, but she warns there could be repercussions. Marcus is contacted by another teen working with the DHS, Masha, who tells him that he is still very much on their radar and he has only a few days before they close in.  Masha offers him the chance to escape with her if he’ll help her created an Xnet diversion.  Marcus and Ange decide to trust her and stage a Vampire-themed LARP for the Xnetters.  Marcus and Ange are separated during the confusion, and Masha practically kidnaps Marcus on her way out of town. Marcus steals her phone and runs away. He’s eventually captured by DHS, but not before he is able to get Masha’s phone and incriminating video safely to Barbara. Once in DHS’s detainment facility, Marcus is waterboarded for his information, and he nearly gives up hope when suddenly the facility is raided by the California State Troopers under the guidance of Stratford.  Stratford warns Marcus that he’s still under arrest and it may be a few days before they can have a hearing to post him for bail, but that from here on in, it will all be done under the normal course of the judicial system, not through secret DHS prisons.  Marcus is eventually charged with a small misdemeanor for stealing Masha’s phone, and the rest of the charges are dropped.  The story ends with the news that the woman in charge of the facility was found not guilty of wrongdoing in a closed military tribunal.

The novel is in many respects a dystopian novel based on the fears of what would happen is a terrorist attack on the same scale as the 9/11 attacks were successfully pulled off in San Francisco.  The villains in this novel are not the terrorist so much as the draconian surveillance state that the DHS creates in order to prevent further attacks.  In this novel, Doctorow imagines many of the real-world ant-terrorism tactics used by DHS but turned on a hactivist teen from California, someone with which the readers can empathize.  Marcus is an intelligent, charming high school student with a bit of an anti-authoritarian streak who just happens to be at the wrong place and the wrong time. Doctorow’s novel warns of the civil liberties that have been lost on the battle for the War on Terror, real losses made more evident in this dystopian vision of what is to come if we allow unrestrained powers to the NSA, FBI, and DHS in response to terrorism threats.  Part of the immediacy of the text is that it places the anti-terrorism tactics of rendition and interrogation in the back yard of San Francisco, not in some remote country like Yemen or Syrian.  I really liked this book; the novel is part dystopia, part romance, and part hacker manifesto.  Doctorow, who is one of the co-founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, laces his fiction with realistic and useful explanations of the basics of cryptography, trust webs, RFID hacking, privacy rights, and open source software, sometimes leaning a bit on the preachy side, but for the most part his explanations help further the plot of the story. I really enjoyed this novel and think it has great teen appeal, as it has a lot of quick pacing and great suspense as the story unfolds.  The technology is a little bit dated, but not so much that a current teen would find it too stale.  The ever-present smart-phone and gaming systems in current use are just the next generation or two after the ones used in this fictional world. I think this novel would be a great way to discuss practical issues such as using encryption for personal mail and data backups, preserving privacy rights in a post 9/11 world, and real world civil rights organizations like the EFF and ACLU.

The Diveners by Libba Bray

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The Diviners
by Libba Bray

One of the books I read this week was Libba Bray’s The Diviners.  The novel is urban fantasy, borrowing elements of horror, murder mystery, fantasy, teen romance, and historical fiction.  The book is set in New York City during the roaring twenties, and features a cast of characters whose lives intersect as a result of a series of occult murders.  The book rotates between Evie, a young flapper from Ohio who can read objects for their history; her uncle Will, who runs a museum on the paranormal and is a musty academic learned in the history of the supernatural; Memphis, a teenage numbers runner who used to be a faith healer until he lost his powers trying to heal his own mother; Sam, a thief and con man who has the ability to fade from notice when he wants people to not see him; Theta, a Ziegfield dancer with a secret past; Henry, Theta’s roommate, best friend, and piano player; and Jericho, Will’s beefy assistant and ward.  Evie has been sent to stay with her uncle, and on her first week in New York City she and Will are brought into the crime scene of a brutal murder.  Evie accidentally reads a shoe from the victim, and has visions of the poor girl’s last few impressions.  The whole city is enthralled with the mounting bodies, each one mutilated and left with occult notes left from the Pentacle Killer.  Eventually, Evie’s visions from the various murder scenes and Will’s research puts them on an unbelievable trail for a murderer who was hanged 50 years prior.  Somehow, Naughty John, aka John Hobbes, has managed to come back from the dead to fulfill the eschatological prophecies that mark The Brethren’s rituals to summon forth the Beast; their chosen one will herald the end of the world and bring in a new age.

While not a quick read (the book is nearly 600 pages long), it’s a very captivating story, as the book alternates perspectives from many different characters, including certain chapters from the point of view of the murder victims, which makes for a chilling and creepy tone. I think Bray does a remarkable job fleshing out interesting backstories for all her main characters, and their interconnected supernatural abilities and weird prophetic dreams make for an engrossing fictional world.  The novel wraps up the investigation into John’s brutal murders, but ends with enough promise for further adventures for the Diviners.  While the novel is at times pretty dark and the page count somewhat daunting, I’m sure this novel would appeal to teens, especially as most of the story is told from Evie’s perspective.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

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Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
by Ransom Riggs

One of the novels I read this week was Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.  The novel follows the adventures of Jacob Portman, as he investigates the strange orphanage where his grandfather, Abraham Portman, grew up in Wales, when he was the only survivor from his Jewish Polish family who died at the hands of the Nazi pogroms.  Jacob has been seeing a therapist, Dr. Golan, ever since he’s had troubling nightmares and general paranoia after discovering his dying grandfather; Jacob could have sworn he saw a monstrous man in the shadow, but no one, not the police, not his parents, nor his therapist seem to think it was anything more than an acute stress reaction to finding his dying grandfather. With the blessing of his therapist, Jacob and his father visit the small island in Wales where Abraham lived as a child.  Jacob then discovers that the strange stories his grandfather told of Miss Peregrine and her orphanage of peculiar children were all true.  Miss Peregrine is a time-traveler, also known as a ymbrynes, and she and her wards live in a time loop, where they are safely reliving Sept. 3, 1940 over and over apart from the rest of the world.  Jacob follows Emma into their world, meets all sorts of peculiar children, such as a boy who is invisible, a boy who has bees living in his body, a girl with a second mouth on the back of her head, a boy who can animate golems, a girl who levitates, and many more. However, it appears that Jacob has endangered them all, because monstrous hallowghasts and wights, who were responsible for Abraham’s murder, have followed Jacob to Miss Peregrines loop. It turns out that Dr. Golan was a wight, who was using Jacob as a way to discover where Abraham’s friends where. Dr. Golan is able to cross the threshold of the loop, and he kidnaps Miss Peregrine and Miss Avocet, transformed into birds.  Some of the children form a rescue party, and while they are unable to recover Miss Avocet, they are able to recover Miss Peregrine, who somehow seems unable to transform back to human form.  The novel ends with the children deciding to leave their ruined orphanage and chase down the hallowghasts. Jacob confronts his father and tells him that he is planning to leave with his new friends.  Some of the peculiar children introduce themselves to Jacob’s dad, and they leave him with a letter and a photograph on Emma and Abraham together, as proof that it wasn’t a strange dream.

The novel follows the definitions of magical realism and urban fantasy, where Riggs has deftly merged the horrors of World War II Axis powers with magical elements, which include a strange form of time travel, supernatural children, and paranormal antagonists, the hallowghasts and wights. As is common in many urban fantasies, the plot follows a teen who is “unexpectedly drawn into paranormal struggles… gains allies, finds romance, and… develops or discovers supernatural abilities of their own”. This novel was very well written, with a compelling story arc, interesting and fleshed out cast of characters, a decent amount of tension and suspense, and wonderful use of found photographs and other non-textual elements.  I think the interaction between Jacob and his father, a failed ornithologist who felt estranged from his own father, was one of the emotional centerpieces of the book.  This has been one of my favorite books I’ve read this semester and I very much look forward to reading its sequel, Hollow City.  I can see how this book would be very appealing to teens who are into slightly dark urban fantasy.  In many ways, it reminded me of pieces of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere and The Graveyard Book, but is very much its own story. The copy of novel I had included a brief interview with Riggs, who credits John Green as both an influence and inspiration, stating “Reading John Green showed me how ambitious and engaging young adult literature could be…”

The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade

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The Ghost and the Goth
by Stacey Kade

One of the dead narrator novels I read this week was Stacey Kade’s The Ghost and the Goth. It tells the story of newly dead Alona Dare and her spiritual connection to Will Killian, who can see spirits just like his father did before he committed suicide.  Will just wants to survive the last few weeks of his senior year so he can graduate and then move somewhere less populous, this decreasing the number of dead ghosts vying for his attention. His plans to graduate are complicated by his troubled relationship to Principal Brewster and psychiatrist Dr. Miller, both of whom believe Will is just a troubled teen with psych problems; Brewster would like nothing more than to have an excuse to expel him, and Dr. Miller wants to send him to a psych hospital for further treatment. Will and Alona form an uneasy alliance  so that if Alona can help keep the rest of the ghosts at school at bay, Will will do what he can to help her move on to the rest of her afterlife. As the story unfolds, the narration jumps back and forth between chapters narrated by Alona and chapters narrated by Will. We discover that despite her perfectly constructed outward appearance, Alona’s home life was a shambles with divorced parents; mom’s response to the divorce was to become an alcoholic mess. Will is additionally hunted/haunted by an unnamed spirit of negative energy, which Will at first seems to think is what’s left of his father after his suicide. Ultimately, he discovers that it’s the projection of his best friend Joonie, who is riddled with guilt, shame, and anger due to her part in the accident of their mutual friend Lily. Will knows that whatever spirit had been in Lily before the accident is now gone, and there’s no coming back. Lilly is brain dead. But Joonie still hopes that she can somehow summon Lily’s spirit and put it back in her broken body to make her whole. The novel ends with Joonie finally accepting forgiveness for her part in the accident, since Alone writes to her via a Ouija board, Will explaining to his mom that he sees dead ghosts, and Alona forgiving her mother for her part in Alona’s death.

I have to admit, I had a hard time getting through this novel.  Had it not been required reading for class, I think I would have set it down after a few chapters.  In my mind, Kade takes a long time to develop Will and Alona as anything more than just clichés of the troubled goth kid and the self-important cheerleader.  While we eventually learn more about the two characters, I still think they are very flat stereotypes more so than believable teens. Perhaps it might have some teen appeal, but I think there are better books out there that have more compelling story arcs and better fleshed out protagonists.  I was also reminded of our earlier module on alternating narrators.  I think there are books that handle this literary device more adroitly than here.

YA Lit and the Deathly Fellows

Campbell, Patty. “YA Lit and the Deathly Fellows.” Horn Book, May/June 2008. Pp. 357-361. 
 http://www.hbook.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/may08toc.pdf

Patty Campbell concludes that YA Critic Jonathan Hunt is correct when he explains that “the dead narrator gives the narrative a sense of immediacy that is so characteristic of young adult fiction, but at the same time allows for a degree of reflection and self-awareness that would probably otherwise seem jarring for a young adult narrator (p. 361).” I think they are right on this count in that the idea of having a narrator who is dead gives the novel  a twist that allows us to believe that the narrator, while still a teen, has been through an experience that gives them wisdom and distance to be more reflective.  Death gives new depth to the narrator’s viewpoint, and is perhaps more inwardly self-aware than most living teens.  Campbell also point out that many teens view themselves as immortal and questions “Is it more comfortable for them than for adults to read close-up accounts of death, since they are theoretically further away from having to accept their own mortality (p. 361)? “ I believe that’s part of it.  As teens, the idea of our mortality is often a distanced event in the far off future, not an immediate concern. Vicariously experiencing the death of the protagonist in a novel doesn’t seem as harrowing or frightening as it perhaps does for adults who have seen parents and friends pass on, and who perhaps feel more intimately the specter of our frail mortality. But I think that’s not totally true. Many teens have seen parents and friends die, and while perhaps they still feel somewhat invincible, I think it’s not fair to our teen readers to assume that they don’t have a healthy respect for the frailty of life. In many respects, I think these novels bring forth the immediacy of making the most of the time we have while still alive, and that’s a very teen-like perspective: to live in the moment.

The Devil's Intern by Donna Hosie

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The Devil's Intern
by Donna Hosie

One of the books I read this week was Donna Hosie’s The Devil’s Intern. In it, we are presented an afterlife in Hell where the damned souls who don’t make it to heaven are instead sent to hell to become devils.  The Devil is perhaps the only demon presented that has any major connection to the traditional construct of an adversary to Heaven’s will; the majority of the characters are human souls who have died and who now live in Hell. In this regard, the novel’s version of devils is very different than one presented in most Judeo-Christian versions of fallen angels; here all who die and don’t make it to heaven become devils. 

The story follows the trajectory of Mitchell Johnson and his three closest devil friends, Medusa (aka Melissa Pallister), Alfarin, and Elinore, as they play around with a time-travel device, the Viciseometer.  Mitchell’s plan was originally to steal this time-traveling device, then visit the time of his death and somehow prevent it, thus sparing himself the early death that he suffered.  His friends come along for support and find themselves on the run from Skin-Walkers, horrible demons that track down Unspeakables, truly evil humans who are set to suffer in a different part of Hell.  One by one, the four visit their untimely demises, but instead of stopping their own deaths, their time-travel meddling has consequences that affect their deaths. For example, Alferin’s Viking clan see him after they have sent a longboat with his burning remains out to sea, and take this as an omen that he has made it safely to an honorable death. In Elinore’s case, choosing to save herself would mean choosing to let her two brothers die in a fire, and so she chooses to remain in the fire instead. Alferin and Mitchell attempt to rescue her, but instead can only give her a quick death, rather than the more excruciatingly painful death of dying in flames. Mitchell discovers that his mother had a second son after his death, and he faces the fact that if he had not died, his brother would never have been born. In addition, if he were to prevent his death, Alferin and Elinore would never have had the Viciseometer that allowed them to participate in their deaths in the way they have. In the end, it seems that it was the vision of his other time-traveling self that caused him to step into the oncoming bus that kills him.  Medusa’s encounter is the only one in which the four actually prevent a death. Due to their meddling, they are able to cause the death of Medusa’s stepfather, a truly wicked man who abused little girls before and after Medusa’s death.  The Skin-Walkers that had been hounding them, it turns out, were not after Medusa or any of the other friends but were instead hunting down her stepfather.  Medusa’s efforts mean she doesn’t die on the Golden Gate bridge, and her mother doesn’t blame herself for Medusa’s death.  The consequences of changing the timestream is that the three others, Mitchell, Alferin, and Elinore, have no memories of their friendship with Medusa because she doesn’t become a devil in the same way as before.  However, the book ends with Mitchell interviewing a possible second intern, a young devil named Melissa Pallister. The way the story unfolds, it seems that Mitchell’s boss, Septimus, knew all along what would happen and allowed it to unfold according to his plan.

I will admit that this was not one of my favorite books to read. It wasn’t until I suspected that something was not quite right with Medusa and that the Skin-Walker’s are following her and not any of the other three that the book really got interesting.  The mystery of how she died and why she desires to punish her abusive stepfather are a great complication in the plot and perhaps the most interesting part of the novel, but it really only happens in the last third of the book.  I think the novel might have teen appeal, but I would warn readers that they need to be patient enough to get to the more interesting parts of the book and not give up in the early parts that perhaps don’t work as well.

Rot and Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

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Rot and Ruin
by Jonathan Maberry

One of the books that I read this week was Jonathan Maberry’s zombie novel, Rot and Ruin. It tells the story of fifteen-year-old Benny Imura and the events that happen in his life after her decides to apprentice with his older brother, Tom.  Tom is a zombie bounty hunter, but he prefers the term closure specialist. Benny has very infantile ideas of what it would be like to kill zoms for a living, and he idolizes bounty hunters like Charlie Matthias and Motor City Hammer, who can often be found at the Lafferty General Store bragging about their exploits. After he turns fifteen, he has to find a job or lose his food ration pay, so he reluctantly agrees to follow his brother into the family business. Going out to the Ruin and actually seeing what Tom does for a living changes Benny, and it’s nearly a week after her returns that he has the ability to talk to his friends, Chong, Morgie, and Nix. The bulk of the novel follows the adventures of the two brothers as they try to figure out what has happened to the Lost Girl, Lilah, and her connection to Gameland, a place in the Ruin where bounty hunters pit children against zombies for sport and gambling. The story is told from the perspective of Benny, who initially resents his older brother but who soon learns to appreciate his courage and compassion. The characters are well rounded, the story is believable in the context of the world of the novel, and the novel unfolds at a quick pace of an adventure story. 

I had been a little hesitate to read a zombie narrative, as this is not my preferred genre, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that Maberry had fleshed out a world and society that has survived a zombie apocalypse. It’s through Tom and Benny’s investigation into the whereabouts of Lilah that we realize the difference between zombies, who are dangerous and destructive, but have no will, and ruthless men like Charlie Matthias who are evil and whose intentional actions are far more monstrous than any zombie. I can easily see this book in the hands of readers who enjoy a twist on the zombie narrative, and I’m interested in reading some of the sequels once I have some free time.

Thirsty by M. T. Andersom

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Thirsty
by M. T. Andersom

One of the books I read this week was M. T. Anderson’s Thirsty. Having read his Octavian Nothing novels and Feed, I was interested in seeing what twist Anderson would bring to the supernatural thriller, and I was not disappointed.  Thirsty tells the story of Christopher, a freshman living in Clayton, where each spring the town performs rituals to preserve the binding that keep Tch’muchgar, the Vampire Lord, in perpetual prison on another plane of existence. Christopher has begun to suspect that he may be turning into a vampire himself.  As luck would have it, he is contacted by an otherworldly agent, who goes by the name of Chet and who offers Chris a chance to help the Forces of Light be finally rid of Tch’muchgar and a chance to reverse his vampirism as a reward for service.  As Chris’s thirst grows, he slowly loses his ties to his two best friends, Tom and Jerk, his family, and all the things that make him human.  He agrees to help Chet on the hopes that he can somehow go back to the way things were.  But not everything is as it appears.  The creature Chris thought was a demon on Tch’muchgar’s side might in fact have been a fifth-dimensional guardian of light, and Chet might not be what he claims to be. Chet claims that he’s playing the vampires in order to help smuggle the Arm of Moriator onto Tch’muchgar’s dimension, so that when the warlocks that are helping the vampires disrupt the ceremony of binding attempt to free Tch’muchgar, he will then be unable to free himself. Chris blindly follows along, hoping to find a cure for his ever-growing thirst.  It’s only after he has followed Chet’s instructions that he starts to question whether he has helped the Forces of Light or the Forces of Darkness. As the fateful night of the Sad Festival of Vampires arrives, everything comes to a head.  Chris attempts to disrupt the vampire church’s plans, but he only witnesses how he was played by Chet. It appears that Tch’muchgar was attempting to escape his imprisonment and embrace death, rather than continue to be a captive for eternity. Chet was only using the vampires to further his own agenda and had no plans of ever curing Chris.  Chris, totally defeated and wondering why he was selected to play a part in this greater scheme, gets his answer from Chet ,“Why did I choose you, Christopher? Because you threw the Forces of Light off my trail…They thought that because you were a child, you were innocent, working for them. It took them months to figure out the truth. And by the time they did, you were marked as mine; there was nothing they could do… But do you know the other reason I chose you, Christopher? Because I knew you were an incompetent: self-pitying; self-absorbed; self-centered. The perfect teen. I know you wouldn’t ask the right questions at the right time” (p. 224). The book ends with Tch’muchgar released from his prison and destroyed, Chet (or whatever he really was named) payed in unlimited power, and Chris slowly facing the ever-mounting knowledge that he’ll either succumb to his thirst and slay his family first or be staked as the inhuman creature he has become.

Anderson doesn’t provide a happy ending. I thought this was an interesting take on the vampire mythos, and Anderson explains on the blurb in the book jacket, “I grew up in a suburb much like Chris’s. It seemed to me that there were always a lot of kids struggling with the isolation of wanting to do the right thing when there was no right thing to do”. Anderson’s novel is full of black humor and provides a satirical take on the typical vampire tropes, but ultimately provides a chilling conclusion. I especially love a quote right as Chris faces his bleak prospects, where he writes, “And I realize that the decision to be human is not one single instant, but is a thousand choices made every day. It is choices we make every second and requires constant vigilance. We have to fight to remain human.” Chris must pay for the bad choices he has made along the way, and has given up the right to continue the struggle to be human. His actions, despite their good intentions, have brought him to his monstrous end. I really loved the sucker-punch ending, and I think this book would have tremendous appeal to teens, for whom the struggle to become the person they think they want to be doesn’t always come easily. Anderson perfectly captures the feelings of being trapped by forces beyond your control and betrayed by your body’s hungers and desires.

Fat Angie by e. E. Charlton-Trujillo

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Fat Angie
by e. E. Charlton-Trujillo

One of the books I read this week was Charlton-Trujillo’s novel Fat Angie.  It’s primarily a standard prose novel with occasional interludes of definitions and some song lyrics which Angie and KC sing. It follows the story of freshman Angie, whose older sister gave up a basketball scholarship to serve in the air force, but was captured, tortured, and presumed dead.  Angie’s family has been messed up ever since then, with her parent divorcing, her adopted brother Wang acting out, and her mother completely turning into a cold, emotionally abusive bitch who just cannot be bothered to deal with the two kids she has left.  Angie reacted badly to the news of her sister’s capture and attempted to cut her wrists at school.  The thrust of the novel is Angie’s friendship with the new girl KC.  Eventually, KC come out to Angie as “gay-girl gay” and the two kiss.  Her brother Wang takes a cell phone photo of the two kissing, and sends it to some of his friends, who in turn spread it out throughout the school.  Angie is already very bullied at school, mostly because she’s overweight and because of her public attempted suicide, so she doesn’t handle being outed in the most gracious ways.  But thanks to the influence of KC , Angie has the confidence to try out for the varsity basketball team. She surprises herself and everyone else when her drive wins over the coach, who gives her one of two openings on the team. Unfortunately, Angie’s tormentor Stacy Ann gets the other spot. Both of the girls spend most of the season on the bench, but Angie sinks some very critical, game winning free throws in one game, which she imagines her sisters somewhere else somehow knowing.  Eventually, things come crashing down as KC resorts to cutting herself when her father refuses to accept her as gay.  Angie and her family find out that her sister’s remains have been found and are returned home for a funeral. But oddly enough, Angie finds solace once she come to terms with the loss of her sister.  While she’s deeply sad that her sister is gone, a part of her is relieved to know she’s no longer somewhere suffering and thinking of her family back home. After a reunion with KC, Angie has the courage to mail her sister the letter she had written, even though she knows no one will ever receive it.  The books handles some very serious subjects, such as self-harm, suicide, coming out to your parents, bullying, and an emotionally abusive mother. I thought it was a great book, and I can see why it won a Stonewall Book Award.

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children by Kristin Cronn-Mills

Image from Amazon

Beautiful Music for Ugly Children
by Kristin Cronn-Mills

One of the books I read this week was Kristin Cronn-Mills’ Beautiful Music for Ugly Children. This novel tells the story of Gabe, a transgender teen to has started DJing at a small community radio station.  The story takes place right around his high school graduation.  The central story line concerns itself with the repercussion Gabe faces in choosing to introduce himself to his listeners as Gabe.  You see, Gabe’s name at birth was Elizabeth, and while Gabe has come out to his best friend Paige and his own family, he is still not ready to do so at school. Gabe decides to come out to his mentor and next door neighbor, John, who got him his spot at 90.3 KZUK and who immediately gets it. John explains that working in his line of business, he’s seen just about everything.  If Liz thinks she’s a guy named Gabe, he’s fine with it; Gabe’s not the first “triangle” he’s ever known. A large part of the complications to the narrative arise as a result of Gabe’s growing fan base with his radio show.  One fan in particular asks him out on a date, and Gabe goes out on his first date as a guy, but she recognizes Gabe from the lunch line at school, reacts negatively, and outs Gabe to the rest of the Ugly Children’s Brigade. Entwined with his growing confidence as a DJ, Gabe becomes more confident as a guy, more confident in expressing his complicated affections for his best friend Paige, and more determined to start a new life once school is done.  Part of Gabe’s dreams involve a DJ contest for The Vibe, where the top contestant will win a guest DJ spot at a larger radio station in the twin cities. A few days before the big contest, some of Gabe’s fans host a party to meet their favorite DJ, but the party is crashed by two bullies from school that have been threatening Gabe.  Kyle and Paul seriously hurt John, leaving him in a coma. Gabe is so concerned about John, he nearly misses the Summer Monday Festival, and he might as well have, for his heart isn’t in it and he puts in a wooden performance. John eventually comes out of his coma and gets released home.  While Gabe lost his shot with The Vibe, he still has his show on KZUK and decides to start classes at the local community college. 

A large part of the story concerns how different characters react to Gabe’s transitioning.  John is supportive from the get go, only now and then forgetting to not call his neighbor Liz instead of Gabe.  Paige is very supportive for most of the novel, although she has some difficulties coming to terms with Gabe’s feelings for her and disappears from Gabe’s life for a few days as she processes her own emotions for her BFF. Gabe’s parents don’t know how to react, and for the most part refuse to acknowledge Gabe’s transitioning.  But eventually, both mom and dad come around. One of the most touching scenes is one where Gabe’s dad introduces him to a client as Gabe, something he had not previously been willing to do. Gabe’s boss at the record store seems perfectly fine with the situation, and they jokingly make a huge batch of name tags to wear including names like Betty and Mr. Snuffalufagus. Some of the other kids in Gabe’s school are pretty transphobic, including his first date Mara, who is hurt and confused; she retaliates by outing Gabe to his fans. Kyle and Paul are incredibly violent in their threats and actions. On the other hand, Heather seems very accepting of Gabe and constantly texts and flirts with him. Several of the Ugly Children Brigade remain loyal fans even after Gabe’s secret is let out.  So the novel pretty well encompasses a wide spectrum of reactions to Gabe.

I really enjoyed this book and think it deserves the accolades it’s received, winning the Stonewall Award for 2014.  This was an intimate, thoughtful, and nuanced book about a transgender teen navigating his transitioning.  It was touching, emotional, and grounded in the experience of what it means when your B-side is so different from your A-side. The book wraps up a little too neatly for my tastes, and the conclusion involves a somewhat unbelievable Elvis artifact going on auction.  But nevertheless, I really enjoyed Gabe’s story.  I think this book should be available in any good library for teens to find. I think this book lends a voice to a segment of our teens that perhaps has not been heard before.

From Romance to Magical Realism

Crisp, Thomas. “From Romance to Magical Realism: Limits and Possibilities in Gay Adolescent Fiction.” Children’s Literature in Education 2009, 40:4. Pp. 333-348

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10583-009-9089-9

Image from Springer

Crisp’s article posits two main ways in which YA authors represent gayness, “While some authors use homophobia as the foil against which queer characters struggle in order to find happiness as a couple, others work to suspend "reality" by imagining away homophobia…” Quoting Cart and Jenkins, Crisp explains that the increase of gay characters in YA lit indicates a move away from ghettoization and towards a “more integrated part of the total body of young adult literature”. Yet Crisp warns that many of these depictions of gay characters in YA lit still manage to reinforce a “heteronormative and heterosexist” worldview. Crisp explores the use of gay characters in Alex Sanchez’s Rainbow Boys trilogy, where heteronormative masculine and feminine roles are maintained as fit the norms of the romance genre. In Sanchez books, there are “textual construction that reinforce a view of gay people as outcasts subject to being the targets of physical abuse and verbal harassment”. Crisp then explores the homophobic rhetoric used in Sherman Alexie’s Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian to describe the queer-tinged relationship between Junior and Rowdy. Crisp explains, “The intention here is not to suggest that any author of young adult fiction is endorsing or approving of homophobia, but simply to draw attention to the fact that many titles rely upon homophobia and homophobic discourse to provide readers with a sense of ""realism."" Crisp then explores a different narrative strategy used by authors like David Levithan in his book Boy Meets Boy, which he characterizes as a “utopian” and existing not in a real setting but rather one in which Levithan  “seeks to demonstrate what this world can become”. In magical realism texts, authors invite the readers “to compassionately experience the world as many of our fellow human beings see it.” Crisp explains that Levithan’s book “is a novel with a clear mission: it hopes to serve as an intervention, a tool for activism. On one level, the attempt is effective at momentarily disrupting categories of “male,” “female,” “gay,” “straight,” and “queer.”” But Crisp critiques Levithan in pointing out that simply flipping the binary narrative of “gay/not gay” and “bad/not bad” is not enough to disrupt heteronormativity; literature would have to imagine “beyond identity categories.” Crisp explains that “an antihomophobic stance reacts within a good/bad binary without new opportunity; the task ultimately involves finding a new place to begin.” Crisp explains that much like the use of The Diary of Anne Frank is a way to distance youth from the harsh realities of confronting the Holocaust, many of the modern YA queer lit “often actually work to continue the invisibility of gay males by filtering queer existence and distancing readers (i.e., queer characters are safely viewed through layers of heterosexuality).” Crisp argues that readers need to critically assess whether increased quantity of new YA LGBTQ lit is in fact progress, if these texts reaffirm what is taken for granted in a heteronoramitve society or use homophobia as “inevitable “ or “natural”.

I think Crisp’s critiques are valid, in as much as many of the YA books I knew of before taking this class follow many of the genre tropes of romance lit,  reimagined with gay characters who still fall into the heteronormative goal of monogamous coupling.  Nevertheless, I think Levithan’s novel of Will Grayson, Will Grayson is one example of a text that transcends this.  In this collaboration between John Green and David Levithan, the character Tiny Cooper is positively depicted despite the fact that his increasingly large number of love interests point to a reality of gay love that doesn’t quite fall in line with monogamous coupling. That said, it’s worth noting that the story revolves about the paired successful relationship of Will Grayson and Jane Turner (heterosexual pairing), and the less successful relationship between a second Will Grayson and Tiny Cooper (gay pairing). Nevertheless, the second Will Grayson’s failed relationship with Tiny Cooper gives him the courage to come out to his mother and peers at school and even provides for the character growth that allows him to make a healthy platonic friendship with another openly gay boy in his own school. Levithan and Green’s novel is incredibly hopeful in its tone, ultimately showing that being true to your self leads to positive, nurturing relationships.  More than romantic love, I think this books recognizes the value of friendship as a support structure. I think this novel falls in line with what Crisp would define as magical realism, one where “queer characters are safely viewed through layers of heterosexuality.”  I loved the book, and think that the rich characters of Tiny Cooper and both Will Graysons are fully developed characters that teens can identify with, but I think that Crisp would have problems with this novel just as much as he did with Boy Meets Boy.

The Darker Side of the Sorting Hat

Alexander, Jonathon and Black, Rebecca. “The Darker Side of the Sorting Hat: Representations of Educational Testing in Young Adult Dystopian Novels. Children's Literature, Volume 43, 2015, pp. 208-234.

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/childrens_literature/v043/43.alexander.html

Image from Project MUSE

Jonathan Alexander and Rebecca Black write, “As such, utopias and dystopias are less blueprints to embrace or to avoid as they are opportunities to interrogate how we understand and imagine our present… As we approach these dystopias about high-stakes testing, we explore how our current cultures of educational testing might be structuring our imagination of both the present and future.” Alexander and Black argue that in looking at dystopias that have some form of high-stakes testing or competition as narrative element, the readers are viewing these books with thought of modern day rigors of high expectations of college applications (with the concomitant pressure for more and more external activities and internships) as well as the dire punitive results of dashed hopes if students have a single bad testing day. Alexander and Black look closely at four recently published dystopia series of novels with testing or completion as a driving narrative motif: Collin’s Hunger Games, Roth’s Divergent, Lu’s Legend, and Charbonneau’s The Testing.

They identifies a common thread in these novels are the use of tests for societal control, where “the types of learning that took place leading up to testing, as well as the types of questions and challenges that made up the test themselves, were all aimed at constructing and winnowing out certain types of knowledge and people. The types of people, forms of learning, and skills and strategies being cultivated are clear indicators of the cultural values of the governments represented in these novels”.  Alexander and Black highlight the similarity that this bears to the rhetoric used in modern-day education circles, where “skills-based instruction and work-force focused topics” are being used to educate the next generation of the workforce.  They point out how in these dystopia, acquiescence to the tests leads to a passive and productive workforce at the expense of individuality.  In these books, “Testing emphasizes the battle of individuals for access to limited resources and opportunities… the competition for survival is often framed as a series of tests that individuals must face for inclusion into a community or even for educational advancement. The stakes for failure are often extraordinarily high.”

As Alexander and Black point out, these tests are less about discovering the fullness of their participants’ desires, goals, and interests and more about finding ways to mold behavior into socially-appropriate roles that further the society depicted in these novels. As they explains, “individual agency is nonexistent in the face of state interests and needs.”  One additional element is that while these tests are portrayed as impartial and equitable, it’s clear that socio-economic status (SES) helps determine access and success in these tests. For example, in The Hunger Games, viewers from the districts are able to influence the game by providing food, tools, and medication to the game participants, but poorer districts don’t have the money to purchase these types of assistance for their tributes, and they are thus less likely to be victorious. They write that “these books show young people coming into some critical consciousness about the inequities and injustices instantiated in the governmental systems to which they are subject. To varying degrees, we see these young women rebel against and combat those systems.” But a shortcoming of theses dystopian novels is that, while “ …[o]n one hand, the books are deeply concerned with fascistic tendencies; on the other, they have a hard time imagining nonviolent alternatives…”

Alexander and Black question why these types of books might appeal to teens and seems to answer that “tales of life-and-death struggle attract adolescent readers responding hyperbolically to their own personal and social transformations. But it is hard for us not to read these books of “high-stakes testing” as also appealing to students’ and young people’s sense of their own increasingly high-stakes choices for employment and life direction at a time of economic downturn”.  In other words, part of the attraction to teens is that in these novels, they see a fictionalized extreme of the sorts of pressures they are feeling in their own real world experience with standardized testing. While the testing in these novels in hyperbolic in its life-or-death stakes, I think it resonates with teen’s fears of failure and inability to integrate their identities with societal expectations. Alexander and Black explain, “Surely, the texts, in their representation of extreme situations that limit youth and force them into ethically compromising positions, might resonate with increasing youthful frustration—even rage—about current impoverished choices, both in education and career.”  Ultimately they posits “…that the readerly interest in YA dystopias could provide the grounds for a new set of discourses that helps readers—young and old—think through systems of inequality.”

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

Image from Amazon

Beauty Queens
by Libba Bray

One of the books that I read this week was Libba Bray’s weird, hilarious satirical novel, Beauty Queens.  The book takes place on what at first glimpse appears to be a deserted island, where a plane carrying the contestants and film crew of the Miss Teen Dream beauty pageant has crash landed. 13 Miss Teen Dream Pageant contestants are the only living survivors of the crash, and they must work together to try to find food and shelter until they can be rescued. The book’s narrator keeps changing focus on various characters, and as the book unfolds, we learn the backstory of several of the survivors.  One of the things that surprised me reading this book was how well Bray was able to flesh out what first appear to be stock beauty queen bimbos.  Little by little we get to know Adina, Taylor, Nicole, Shanti, Mary Lou, Jennifer, Sosie, Petra, and Tiara, but honestly, the large cast of characters makes it somewhat daunting to juggle that many main characters.  I think the book would lend itself well to re-reading, since in some of the earlier chapters, readers haven’t yet learned to tell apart the different characters, who are sometimes simply introduced as Miss New Hampshire, or Miss Ohio.  By the end of the book, we know much more about these girls than we did in the first few chapters. Bray’s book begins with Adina as the most sympathetic character, since her cynical investigative journalism background provides the reader an outsider’s perspective on the beauty pageant world.  Adina, we learn, had entered the competition to bring it crumbling from within. If any one voice sticks out among the many offered, it would be Adina’s.

But as the book unfolds, we are introduced to the perspectives, goals, and histories of the other contestants, and as they work together to fight for survival, they develop a true camaraderie and a strength and resilience none of them knew they had. Petra, we learn, is a transgender teen who is in the completion to earn the money for surgery, since her mother’s expensive cancer treatments ate up any possibility for them to afford Petra’s surgery cost. Most of the characters have interesting backstories, such as Mary Lou’s family curse of wild women, and the readers root for them individually and as a group.

Bray is not afraid to explore issues like gender roles, capitalism, reality tv, product placement, feminism and femininity, racism, classism, and ecology, but she does so in an absurdist, over-the-top farce.  The tone of the book is hilariously camp, as the girls discover a strange Machiavellian plot with presidential aspirations, illegal arms trade, a ruthless 3rd world dictator, a ship full of pirates, a secret volcano lair, and an indigenous ornithologist.  Just about the time you think things can’t get any weirder, Bray introduces something else into the mix that just makes the reader laugh out loud.  The chapters are sometimes interspersed with crazy commercials and pageant fact sheets filled out by some of the contestants. I really enjoyed this book, much more than I was expecting.

Young Adult Novels with Multiple Narrative Perspectives

Koss, Melanie D. Young Adult Novels with Multiple Narrative Perspectives: The Changing Nature of YA Literature. ALAN Review, Summer 2009 (36:3)

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/v36n3/koss.html

Image from ALAN Review

Melanie Koss writes, “Adolescent literature, which continues to be a typical and valued print text in today’s classroom, increasingly reflects the changes taking place in society, adolescence, and adolescent literacy…Today’s multiple narrative perspective novels are characterized by multiple voices, narrators, points of view, structures, and perspectives.” Koss explains that there are three major causes for the increase in novels with multiple perspectives/narrators: a). textual changes  that “reflect  the changing nature of literature in general and the changing nature of society, which is becoming more accepting of diverse populations and multiple perspectives on single events.;” b). teen changes, because teens are dealing with issues that are harsher and more serious than previous generation of teens, and books that present “different perspectives  can provide teens with ideas on how to act in different circumstances, as well as allow them to experiment with different ideas of identity;” and c). technological changes, because teens “are now much more accustomed to writing and reading on the Internet and using other forms of digital communication technologies. They gather information from a myriad of sources and synthesize it to make sense of a concept or event.”

In general, I agree that the shift towards multiple perspectives comes from the increasingly complex nature of information gathering that we do.  As a technologically adept culture, we now read from multiple sources and multiple technologies (internet, books, magazines, cable TV, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and our general media landscape is broader than generations before.  This has shifted how we expect information delivered to us, so that when reading a textual novel, we expect to be challenged with non-linear texts.  These more complex texts are challenging, in a good way, and provide lots of opportunity to piece together a complex narrative from multiple threads and multiple perspectives.  But as Koss warns, “The nature of these books, specifically their metafictive characteristics—such as intertextuality, multiple narratives, and non-linearity—require readers to think critically in order to achieve comprehension… Teachers must be aware of these changing characteristics in order to help their students navigate these texts.” We must be prepared to work with readers on ways to critically assess multiple perspectives, question narrator credibility, and in general, assemble a story from the pieces presented.

Personally, I find that I especially enjoy literature with either multiple stories that intertwine or parallel stories that intersect.  I find this narrative structure, where the payoff comes when the multiple stories all begin to weave together, to be especially satisfying.  I love it when authors trust their audience to handle complex, intertextual narratives.  Most of my favorite adult authors do this, and I’m just now discovering YA authors that use these narrative strategies. I guess because I'm new to the YA lit scene, I'm more familiar with adult authors who weave together multiple story arcs.  Neil Gaiman has done so beautifully in his comic book series, The Sandman. Neal Stephenson habitually has complex, sprawling narratives with fragmented story lines that eventually intersect in such books as Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, The Cryptonomicon, and Reamde.  Stephenson's books, although not exactly with alternating narrators, have interwoven character stories that remind much of the way Libba Bray uses her various characters in Beauty Queens to provide a wide assortment of perspectives. I've seen it first in adult literature, but thanks to my growing exposure to YA lit, I'm discovering books like Will Grayson, Will Grayson, I'll Give You The Sun, Afterworlds, and Beauty Queens have been doing this type of complex, interwoven narrative structures for a younger audience.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

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Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
by Jesse Andrews

Another book I read this week was Jesse Andrews’ Me and Earl and The Dying Girl. It’s a problem novel concerning dealing with cancer and death. In this book, the main protagonist is Greg Gaines, who has discovered the secret to surviving in high school is to be so minimally engaged with any particular clique as to able to juggle multiple conflicting factions.  Of course, this means Greg really has practically no close attachments to anyone in his school.  All that comes to an awkward end when his mother informs him that a girl from his synagogue , Rachel Kushner, has been diagnosed with leukemia. Rachel and Greg had been friends several years ago, but had drifted apart in the intervening years.  Greg’s mom practically forces him to reconnect, and Greg does what he can to bring a smile to Rachel as she faces what eventually turns out to be terminal cancer.

Rachel learns that Greg and his only real friend, foul-mouthed  Earl, make movies.  Earl shares their movies with Rachel, without warning Greg. Funny escapade after funny escapade, Greg and Earl find themselves making a horrible mishmash of a movie for Rachel.  Greg practically stops going to classes and doing any homework in his efforts to make the movie of Rachel.  The final result is very near unwatchable, and by some train-wreck of circumstances, Greg and Earl are forced to present their tribute movie to the whole high school, which is itself a nightmare.

The book is incredibly funny, something I was not expecting in a book about cancer and death, but the author’s voice is very authentic in his trouble dealing with saying goodbye and his awkward realization that he barely knows the inner thoughts of his friend Earl.  The book is not so much about Rachel and dying, as it is about Greg and his maturation from lonely kid in the periphery to someone who would be able to take ownership in his life enough to write a book about his experiences. In the epilogue, the reader discovers that this whole book was written as a project to convince the University of Pittsburgh to let him in despite his poor grades his senior year.  The writing is at times hilarious and heartbreaking, full of profanity, wit, and gallows humor.  I really enjoyed this book and look forward to seeing the movie adaptation when it comes out on DVD.

The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson

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The Impossible Knife of Memory
By Laurie Halse Anderson

One of the books I read this week was Laurie Halse Andersonn’s The Impossible Knife of Memory,  a problem novel concerning living with a father who has PTSD. In it, the main character Hayley Kincain is dealing with a rough transition to high school. For the past 5 years, she had been “homeschooled” by her father as they drove place to place in an 18 wheeler rig. Her dad, Andy, was mostly running from the ghosts that haunt his dreams, after multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The novel takes place a little after Andy has been arrested for a “drunken disorderly” charge, which puts an end to his truck driving days. He decides to move the two of them back into the house his mother owned, and Hayley is forced to try to make a new life for herself at Belmont High. Through her one friend, Gracie, Hayley meets Finn, editor of the fledgling school newspaper. He badgers her into writing an article for him and his paper, and the two eventually starts dating. Little by little, Hayley lets down her guard with Finn and as she does, she must confront her past that she so desperately sealed away in the back recesses of her memory. As the book progresses, Hayley slowly realizes that Andy is getting worse, rather than better. He continues to self-medicate with whiskey, beer, and pot, rather than seek help from the VA hospital. Eventually, Hayley come to realize that Ms. Benedetti, the school counselor, is actually trying to help her get ready for college and life after school by expressing an interest in her home life and the causes for her poor grades and attendance.

Like is common in problem novels, the supporting cast of characters have problems of their own: Gracie’s parents are divorcing on account of his repeated infidelity, while Finn’s parents are having a difficult time with his older sister, who has substance abuse problems. The climax of the book takes place with a traumatic standoff at the local quarry, when Andy has finally decided to kill himself to put an end to the suffering. Hayley is able to intervene just in time, and the book ends on an optimistic note, not “happily ever after” but “good enough for today.”

The book reads well and balances the growing relationship of Hayley and Finn with the backdrop of her troubled home life with Andy. The characters are reasonable well fleshed out, realistic, and relatable, so the reader empathizes with their respective issues. Hayley’s perceptions of Trish, the woman who raised her from ages six to twelve, is originally very negative. It’s only as the book unwinds that you discover Trish’s positive role in Hayley’s childhood, and her honest desire to help two people she loves. Hayley makes it through the end of the book and provides a glimmer of hope for teens reading this book that might have similar issues with a parent struggling with PTSD. I really enjoyed the pacing of the book, and the slow reveal of Hayley’s past, learning along the way about Hayley’s mother, Rebecca; her grandmother; and ultimately Trish. This is the second book by Anderson I’ve read recently, and I’ve enjoyed them both. I look forward to reading Speak and other titles by this author.

Dark YA Content: Two perspectives

Gurdon, Meghan Fox. “Darkness Too Visible.” The Wall Street Journal,  June 4, 2011.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303657404576357622592697038

Crutcher, Chris. “Young Adult Fiction: Let Teens Choose.” Huffington Post, July 21, 2011
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-crutcher/young-adult-fiction_b_906398.html
 

Image from WSJ

Meghan Cox Gurdon's article "Darkness Too Visible" started a great deal of conversation about the content of young adult fiction. YA author Chris Crutcher responded. What are the arguments for and against this "dark" content? Who do you most agree with and why? How would you respond to either Gurdon or Crutcher?


I’ll very quickly confess that I am unwaveringly on Chris Crutcher's side of the fence on this series of articles.  I think there is value in YA novels that present difficult subjects because teens need these books.  It’s amazing how many kids know someone who is or are themselves going through difficult times as a result of unimaginable situations.  Drunk and abusive parents, parents with PTSD, older siblings in jail or in gangs, questions about their sexual preference or gender identity, pressures of sex, drugs, and alcohol, thoughts of suicide or self-harm, bullying and social stigma from their peers. These are real things that kids may need to process.  Seeing someone in a novel go through the types of problems that they may see can provide a source of relief and a feeling that they are not as alone as they think they are.

And while Gurdon claims that reading about dark subjects normalizes pathologies, I believe that’s not how teens’ minds process these books. Instead, I think the problem is really that parents are often not ready for their children to face the dangers of life that already exist, and that their children need to find sources they trust to process their emotions. Sometimes, that trust extends to a kid’s parents, but sometimes that trust falls on books and authors at the library.  And as I’ve said before and will repeat here, what I choose to expose my child to as a parent is not the same as what as a librarian I will allow on the shelves, because it is not my role to be a parent for every kid that walks in my library. I can’t presume to know what a patron’s parents would and would not allow them to read. And while they are minors, they are also patrons who have a sense of autonomy and a right to self-selection.

Parents have the responsibility to be aware of what their kids are reading, and hopefully have the trust in their relationship to ask their kids about the books they read, the movies the watch, and the games they play. Parents do not have the right to be watchdogs for other parents’ children. That is censorship and I am strongly opposed to it, regardless of the reasons professed for it.

What's Happening in YA Literature? Trends in Books for Adolescents by Melanie D. Koss and William H. Teale

What's Happening in YA Literature? Trends in Books for Adolescents 
by Melanie D. Koss and William H. Teale

image from JAAL

One of the aspects of modern YA that Koss and Teale identify is increasingly more complex narrative structures, with features such as alternating narrators, use of flashbacks and flash forwards, and the inclusion of poetry, epistolary, or other non-linear fiction.  They write, “The reading of texts written using multiple narrative perspectives can offer challenges to teen readers and parallel the piecing together of information that is becoming common in their everyday lives. These novels require readers to follow several different strands, perhaps out of linear order, presented through different voices or narrators, and sometimes with conflicting information and unreliable narrators.”

Increasingly complex narrative structures mirror adult fiction that is also more complex, and provide a view of a more complex world, where various media all compete for attention.  I agree that making sense of the various inputs requires a multi-faceted approach. It only makes sense that modern literature is increasingly multi-modal, fragmented, and complex. As Koss and Teale point out, “Adolescents have to learn to make sense of all of the available information, judge what is accurate and what is biased, and be selective in the information they accept.”

Koss, M. D. and Teale, W. H. (2009). What's Happening in YA Literature? Trends in Books for Adolescents. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 52(7), pp. 563-571.