Coming-of-age novel bounces between cute and brutal
By Julie Myerson |
August 19, 2012, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
WHY do teenagers make such ideal protagonists? Maybe it's because they're doing just what novels do: struggling to make sense of a troubling and imperfect world. And at first, Jim, called Biscuit, and L.A. (Lee Ann), the teenage cousins at the heart of Tom Wright's feisty first novel, are exactly what you hope they'll be: funny, frank, mouthy and more than a touch off kilter. Both are forced to live with their grandmother because their mothers aren't up to the task of child rearing. Their homes are haunted by alcoholism and violence, but Gram takes a simple, affectionate, responsibility for them.
Biscuit possesses a gift: He is blessed with "the Sight," an ability that springs all too gruesomely to life when he starts receiving visions of a teenage girl standing by his bed. The mystery deepens when he and L.A. encounter a witchlike old woman who sits them around a bonfire and makes "Macbeth"-style pronouncements: "The Beast will kill again before he bows to you, ... but there will be peace for the one you find and the one you betray."
Soon after, the pair stumble upon a dead teenage girl. She has been raped and strangled. Biscuit recognizes her as the girl from his dreams and seems to have a direct line into her thoughts. He "knows" she was glad when her attacker mutilated her because "she tried to make herself believe that would be the last thing."
Strong stuff. And, yes, this accomplished yet somehow intensely worrying novel is an extremely strange brew: a mix of the fey, the fairy tale, the occasionally corny and the unspeakably grim. Its unpleasantness is not for the fainthearted.
There's also a problem with pace and focus. Although at least two more girls will be murdered, this central story is often abandoned. New and peripheral characters are given too much attention.
Similarly, when Gram gathers Biscuit and L.A.'s mothers for some family truth-telling, a gripping emotional showdown more or less fizzles out, largely because we don't know or care about the mothers.
But this isn't the biggest problem. There's nothing new, or wrong, about a coming-of-age novel that tackles dark and unpalatable themes. You sense that Wright's background as a practicing psychologist has made him especially sensitive to, and informed about, the abuse and neglect of young people. But the warning flags start to appear as it becomes clear this isn't just a novel about child abuse but a novel about serial rape, sodomy and the prolonged torture and murder of young girls. Do these descriptions really belong in this book?
The heartless violence seems to sit uneasily with the chirpy narration. The novel seems, disturbingly, to lack any realistic sense of consequence. In the end, it's a novel that doesn't seem able to make up its mind whether it wants to be cute or brutal - whether its author is trying to channel "The Waltons" or "Twin Peaks."
Biscuit possesses a gift: He is blessed with "the Sight," an ability that springs all too gruesomely to life when he starts receiving visions of a teenage girl standing by his bed. The mystery deepens when he and L.A. encounter a witchlike old woman who sits them around a bonfire and makes "Macbeth"-style pronouncements: "The Beast will kill again before he bows to you, ... but there will be peace for the one you find and the one you betray."
Soon after, the pair stumble upon a dead teenage girl. She has been raped and strangled. Biscuit recognizes her as the girl from his dreams and seems to have a direct line into her thoughts. He "knows" she was glad when her attacker mutilated her because "she tried to make herself believe that would be the last thing."
Strong stuff. And, yes, this accomplished yet somehow intensely worrying novel is an extremely strange brew: a mix of the fey, the fairy tale, the occasionally corny and the unspeakably grim. Its unpleasantness is not for the fainthearted.
There's also a problem with pace and focus. Although at least two more girls will be murdered, this central story is often abandoned. New and peripheral characters are given too much attention.
Similarly, when Gram gathers Biscuit and L.A.'s mothers for some family truth-telling, a gripping emotional showdown more or less fizzles out, largely because we don't know or care about the mothers.
But this isn't the biggest problem. There's nothing new, or wrong, about a coming-of-age novel that tackles dark and unpalatable themes. You sense that Wright's background as a practicing psychologist has made him especially sensitive to, and informed about, the abuse and neglect of young people. But the warning flags start to appear as it becomes clear this isn't just a novel about child abuse but a novel about serial rape, sodomy and the prolonged torture and murder of young girls. Do these descriptions really belong in this book?
The heartless violence seems to sit uneasily with the chirpy narration. The novel seems, disturbingly, to lack any realistic sense of consequence. In the end, it's a novel that doesn't seem able to make up its mind whether it wants to be cute or brutal - whether its author is trying to channel "The Waltons" or "Twin Peaks."
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