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.