Mama Fish is an interesting little novella and one that is hard to categorize. Part coming-of-age, part befriended misfitsDamn, Rio Youers can write.
Mama Fish is an interesting little novella and one that is hard to categorize. Part coming-of-age, part befriended misfits, part urban horror, and part speculative, this novella is most certainly a page-turner, keeping me engrossed the whole way.
The novel alternates between the present of narrator Patrick Beauchamp at age 36, and his past as a high school student. The young Beauchamp feels a need to befriend the school oddball, Kelvin Fish, the kid everyone makes fun of and creates inventive and disgusting stories about. At first, he's not sure why he needs to do this. There is something about Kelvin...he's a misfit, and Beauchamp, despite going through all the motions of fitting in, feels a bit of a misfit himself. Yet, Beauchamp himself lets his imagination get away with him when it comes to Kelvin, creating a grotesquerie of a relationship between Kelvin and his mother, Mama Fish. But what is imagined and what is real could not be further apart and the reality of Mama Fish is more shocking than Beauchamp could ever have imagined.
Youers really captures the awkwardness of youth, of being a misfit, and the relationship he develops between Beauchamp and Kelvin Fish rings true on every level. Beauchamp is a fully developed character and even Kelvin, who speaks almost no words for the first half of the novella, is endearing, evoking a modern take on Lennie Small. When events take a tragic turn, the reader is so invested in the characters--and Youers has developed them so well (with sparse text which tells you how good a writer Youers is)--that you are as devastated as Beauchamp.
Likewise, Youers, in the older Beauchamp, captures the encroaching cynicism of age, of feeling disconnected in a world that seems to be changing faster than you want it to. The balance between the two manifestations of Beauchamp is really artful and serves to tie the two storylines together.
What I also enjoyed is that Youers plays with some of the tropes of the horror genre and even with the trope of homoeroticism often implied by the need of two male misfits to be friends. He gives these things interesting little twists that I found refreshing.
Likewise, Youers also captures the disconnect of the modern world, the disintegration of urban life into strip malls and TGI Fridays, and a society which is so technologically in touch with one another that they've grown distant. Computers and iPods and Blackberrys and Bluetooth that mute the human relationship despite their promise to bring people closer together.
Youers also manages to create a lot of suspense and tension in the story with a nice fluid prose style that is engaging and realistic, but somewhat ominous. THe pace of this story is pitch perfect.
I think the only quibble I had with this novella is that the revelation of Mama Fish and Kelvin Fish's life was a bit of a let down for me. But I think this is largely due to Youers' expertise at building these two characters and my fascination with misfits rather than any flaw with the novella. I was far more interested in exploring the relationship of Kelvin and Beauchamp and their odd friendship that the reveal of Kelvin and Mama Fish's life kind of took something away from that. Still, Youers brings that around with the ending of the novella, tying the older and younger Beauchamp storylines together in a really satisfying (yet not spoon-fed) ending.
This is my first time reading Youers' work and while the price tag ($7.99) may be a bit high for Mama Fish considering the length, I have to say it was worth it because I feel I've found a writer who really, really intrigues and excites me. This wont be my last time reading Youers and if you're looking for a good, creepy yet utterly emotionally truthful quick read, Mama Fish may just be someone you wanna spend time with....more
Anyone who knows me knows that I have a strong connection to the Hawaiian Islands and a strong curiosity to read the stories by Hawaiian authors. I'm Anyone who knows me knows that I have a strong connection to the Hawaiian Islands and a strong curiosity to read the stories by Hawaiian authors. I'm not so much interested in the exoticism of the islands as I am the real, true life stories. So when author Lavina Ludlow (novel forthcoming from Casperian Books) suggested the work of Lois-Ann Yamanaka, I was more than willing to dive in.
Now, when authors are new to me, I do not search out any reviews or biographical information before hand as I don't want to color my perception of their work, positively or negatively. So when I looked at the list of Yamanaka's work, this novel was the first listed and so I went with it. And am I glad I did.
Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers is set in and about Hilo, Hawai'i (the big Island) in the 1970s. Our lead is the appealing Lovey (interestingly, one letter shy of Lovely), a relatively plain girl from a working class Hawai'i. As the blurb says, her Hawai'i is not the Hawai'i of picture post cards. Her family are barely surviving financially, unable to afford the comforts that the haole (white) islanders and many of those with whom Lovey goes to school have. This instills in Lovey a somewhat covetous personality. Like all children, she wants to fit in, be smart and popular and have the coolest things. And her attempts to fit in always seem to backfire, reminding her of her "place" in life.
While Lovey is our main character, most all of her interactions within the novel take place with her friend Jerry, a young man with a seemingly unending positive outlook and as much of an outcast as Lovey. Likewise, her father, a nisei (second generation Japanese American), is an important part of their life, their relationship at times wonderfully close and at other times strained by Lovey's desire to be more than who she is.
At its heart, this novel is a coming-of-age book, the journey of a young girl who is just beginning to grow up and realize what really is important in life. But what this story also is is the story of a young woman and the men in her life...Jerry and her father. While her mother, grandmother, aunty and sister are indeed in her life, the focus always returns to Jerry or her father. While I would have enjoyed seeing more of Lovey's relationship with the women in her life, the richness of her interactions with the men in her life is outstanding and full. One (especially one of the male gender) comes away with a strong understanding of the bond between father and daughter. And blessedly, Yamanaka makes that relationship utterly realistic.
Lovey's relationship with Jerry is wonderfully imbued with a strong sense of what friendship is. As in reality, sometimes the two can't stand one another. They fight and get jealous of one another, but in the end, they always end up together. Truly wonderful.
One of the things about Jerry that was missing for me is the implication that Jerry was gay. The blurb indicates that Jerry is effeminate, implying homosexuality. I didn't particularly see this to be true. Yes, he does play Barbies with Lovey, his interest are a bit off the beaten path compared to other boys, and both he and Lovey are constantly call derogatory names for gays by the "cool kids," but he never read as particularly effeminate or gay to me. In some respects, I would have like to have seen that dealt with more, but when I came away from the novel I realized that whether Jerry was or wasn't gay didn't matter. Because it didn't matter to Lovey. The only thing that mattered was their friendship. I walked away finding that refreshing.
In this novel, Yamanaka touches on a lot of issues. Classism. Racism. The loss of cultural heritage and homeland. But she deals with hem subtly and always in context of the story. We absolutely feel for Lovey when she is made fun of. We get angry at her when she picks on others from a different cultural background. Our heart aches when her father tells how his own father never saw Japan again before he died. It is all beautifully done.
Yamanaka also captures the spirit of the island. She doesn't do this by describing details of the locales, but rather by the use of Hawaiian Creole (pidgin) in the dialog and the prose. The result is a vivid portrayal of time and place that feels like home for us non-Hawaiian readers, yet is different enough so that we know we aren't in our own home. Likewise, Yamanaka brings emotional truth to the story, a universality that draws us to each of the characters. In the end, while we know we aren't a teen Japanese American girl, we understand and can empathize with all she is going through.
For those readers who grew up in the 70s, there is a lot here that will let you take a stroll down memory lane and which helps to provide the emotional connection to the characters. Yamanaka gets all the details right, from Bobby Sherman to wax coke bottle candies.
Perhaps the best thing about this novel is that while Lovey is covetous of those around her, her life is allowing her to build something more precious than the right clothes or the right tape recorder...she's building memories that will last forever.
I can not imaging coming-of-age novels getting any better than this and I can not recommend this book more strongly....more
It is clear from reading this book that author R.W. Day can write. Her prose is neat and concise and, despite the pace dragging a bit in the first 75 It is clear from reading this book that author R.W. Day can write. Her prose is neat and concise and, despite the pace dragging a bit in the first 75 pages, the characters she creates are well rounded and full and the setting is well told. The story is told from the first person perspective of David, one of our heroes, and David is a likeable fellow who, at the age of 16 (albeit, he tends for me to read more 13 or 14), is beginning to realize that he is a bit different from other men, that a life with a woman is somehow not in the cards. When he meet the immensely appealing Healer Landers, things become a little clearer for David, and through a series of events, the two become entangled, both emotionally and romantically. Day captures these two men well and as the novel progresses, we see a nice, clear character arc for each of them, both having changed and grown by the time the reach the end of the novel.
But there's something about this novel that did not sit right with me from about the halfway point. There's something very Victor/Victoria about it in that it is one thing masquerading as another, and I found myself with torn feelings about this novel. You know how when you see a preview for a movie and you're excited because it seems to be one thing, but when you actually get into the movie theatre, it is another thing entirely and you're disappointed verging on angry That is exactly how I feel with this novel and in that respect, I think it deserves two reviews: one for the novel it is and one for the novel it is masquerading as.
So let's tackle first, the novel that it isn't. A Strong and Sudden Thaw is billed as a speculative fiction work and as such, for me, it fails completely on just about every level. There is a great trend in spec fiction these days to regress. That is, the world is post-apocalyptic, but is post-apocalyptic to the point that the setting has reverted to, essentially, a period setting. Many talented authors have gone this route and produced amazing pieces of speculative fiction. However, with this novel, it doesn't work. It is very clearly a period piece, despite the New Ice Age element. While this speculative Ice Age does allow the author to wax nostalgic about things from The Before (like Disneyland and Almond Joy candy bars, hot cocoa), that hardly makes it speculative. You also get a few author-peeking-behind-the curtain moments--such as with the reference to Bennett Cerf--that are meant to place us very far into the future, but instead play out as a clever writer showing herself instead of the world. Throw in some dragons and some government conspiracy (neither of which are fully explored or committed to), and you get a hint of spec fiction without the intense world building spec fic requires. Don't get me wrong…there is good world building here. But the word being built is late 1800s North America through and through, not post-apocalyptic America.
Likewise, all good spec fiction has an element of subtle social commentary woven into it and A Strong and Sudden Thaw certainly has social commentary. However, it is delivered with a sledgehammer and not a velvet glove. Allegory and metaphor are thrown away here. We really, really get that homophobia and discrimination are bad, bad, bad, because Day hammers us over the head with it. Weave in elements such as Healer Landers gifting an old copy of "Crime and Punishment" to David, and any chance of subtlety is gone. Instead of a clever, infiltrating commentary that is one of the hallmarks of excellent spec fic, we get a civics lesson, sans the blackboard and required reading.
Now let's look at the novel as it really is. If you ignore the cross-genre labeling of speculative fiction and the very weak peppering of "speculative" elements, what you have is a really respectable gay romance--part coming-of-age, part historical novel-- that stands out as one of the better examples of the m/m romance genre. And it is this perspective from which one must really approach the novel in order to appreciate its nuances. As an historical gay romance, the preachiness the author practices fits. It becomes less the author's personal point of view and more the central core of the story, the primary antagonist, if you will, that stands between these two men and their developing relationship. From this perspective, the burgeoning relationship between David and Healer Landers becomes more effective emotionally, and the story plays out exceptionally well.
The characters are given distinctive and appealing personalities, right down to the "bit players." The narrative voice of David is appealing and, despite his age, we see a young man who is not frightened by things that are foreign to him, but engaged by them. Curiosity and intelligence go hand in hand with David and it makes him a dynamic hero. Healer Landers is likewise a well-crafted character, his personality distinctly different than David's and multi-dimensional. In a genre where often the two male protagonists tend to sound nearly identical in character voice, it is refreshing to read two characters who may have things in common, but who have their own unique personalities. The relationship between the two of them is also very dynamic, the author sidestepping many of the clichés of the m/m romance genre.
As a reader, I felt a bit cheated by this novel because of the mask it was wearing. If you sell something to me as a speculative fiction, I expect the speculative elements to take center stage in some way and to be well developed and intriguing. And, in speculative works, I expect social commentary to be a subtle bonus, something almost unnoticed. And without a doubt, as I read this, expecting a speculative fantasy, I found myself becoming less interested and more angry at the wool trying to be pulled over my eyes. But once I stopped and realized what this actually was, I began enjoying the novel and seeing it for what it is: a very, very good example of gay romance.
So, if you are looking for a great gay speculative piece of fiction, I think A Strong and Sudden Thaw is more than likely to disappoint. If you are looking for a well-written and engaging piece of gay romance with an historical bent, I think you will hit the mark with this one because that is the book that shines. ...more
It's been a massive number of years since I read this book the last time, but it is one which despite a very muddled ending, has always remained in myIt's been a massive number of years since I read this book the last time, but it is one which despite a very muddled ending, has always remained in my mind. The younger Spoor--standing on the cusp of manhood--contrasted with the image of his his father Malcolm Spoor who is falling into madness is a really interesting dynamic and a rather fresh way at looking at vampirism.
This is an epistolary novel, done as homage to Stoker's Dracula, and for the most part it works, switching from the perspective of the younger Spoor to his teacher. Gannet manages the multiple POVs well and even delves into issues of coming out, growing up, strained familial relationships and less than honest and forthright teachers.
The characters are all very well rounded and the author manages to maintain a creepy almost voyeuristic tone to the novel that fits it well. Not so many scares in this one, but it is a really interesting character study and though it is not a YA novel in any respect, I think for young people it deals pretty honestly with the issues of growing up awkward, being a bit of an outcast, and having parents you just can't understand.
Only near the end does it get muddled, but for me, the story was enough for me to forgive the sloppiness at the end....more
What is so remarkable about Alexander Chee’s debut novel Edinburgh is that he does what is so very difficult to do: he takes what is ugly and despicabWhat is so remarkable about Alexander Chee’s debut novel Edinburgh is that he does what is so very difficult to do: he takes what is ugly and despicable and creates a compelling, utterly truthful and, yes, an even beautiful story of it. By interweaving his prose with Korean folklore, Chee imbues the novel with an almost dreamlike state, one where the dream is equal parts part nightmare and a rose-tinted remembrance of a childhood gone too quickly.
Aphias Zee (nicknamed Fee) is a 12-year-old singer in a Maine boys’ choir where it is revealed that the choir director, Big Eric, is selectively choosing boys from the group, grooming them and then subjecting them to frequent sexual abuse. As the book progresses we see the relationship Fee has with the other boys in the group and his especially strong connection with one of Big Eric’s favorite boys, Peter. We are drawn in and feel the pain Fee does when he sees what the choir director is doing, understanding it for what it is, but not being able to distance the sexual abusers’ horrible acts from his own emerging homosexuality and his own attraction to Peter.
But what Fee--who is a mix of Korean and Scottish parentage--also cannot reconcile for himself is the fact that he isn’t like Peter, he isn’t fair-haired and therefore isn’t one of Big Eric’s favorites. In this way, Chee explores two fascinating and remarkable aspects of Fee’s life: the complexity and emotionally confusing relationship the abused can sometimes have with their perpetrator, as well as the devastating feeling of being an outsider, of being a young child who doesn’t look like the majority of others. It is a fascinating dance that Chee performs and he does it subtly, with characters and prose that are rich and full and deeply human.
Years later, when Fee is grown--having barely survived a deeply self-destructive period--the unease of his youth hands like a storm cloud over his present. He begins teaching at a prep school where he encounters an appealing student named Warden. With this turn of events, Chee brilliantly weaves in an impending sense of danger that permeates the latter half of the book. We worry for the grown Fee. We feel for Warden. The result is a deeply complex set of emotions the reader is put through: we dread Fee’s attraction to Warden; we sense Fee’s deep need to pay a penance for a sin he did not commit; we know the danger if Fee goes down the wrong path; we understand the guilt Fee carries for surviving what others did not. It is a brilliant balancing act, showing us with complete, subtle honesty how the effect of sexual abuse upon a child can sometimes linger long into adulthood.
Edinburgh is not an easy read. Those who have survived such childhood traumas may especially have a difficult time with it, but the story and the dynamics between the characters are truthful, sometimes beautiful and other times terribly ugly, and the novel is--when all is said and done--masterfully written and flawlessly executed. A fascinating, compelling and moving work that should not be missed. ...more
After having read the exploitative and shameful “non-fiction” work “The Colony,” by John Tayman, I was a bit leery of Alan Brennert’s “Moloka’i,” a whAfter having read the exploitative and shameful “non-fiction” work “The Colony,” by John Tayman, I was a bit leery of Alan Brennert’s “Moloka’i,” a wholly fictional account of the one-time leper colony on the Kalaupapa Peninsula of Moloka’i. I am very glad, however, that I did read Brennert’s amazing novel as it gives a far more accurate portrayal of the time and the place and the people than Tayman’s book ever could. It is a sweeping piece of historical fiction and an emotional (but never manipulative) journey of seven-year-old Rachel Kalama who, after being diagnosed in the late 1800s, is sent to Kalawao/Kalaupapa, the site on Moloka’i which served as a leper colony from 1866 until 1969.
Unlike Tayman (whose non-fiction account has been decried by scholars and the remaining residents of Kalaupapa themselves), Brennert does not feel the need to sensationalize the historical facts to tell his story. Brennert did his research and was wise enough to know that the story was compelling enough—it didn’t need to be “ratcheted up”—to have an emotional impact upon the reader and to do justice to the thousands who lived and died at Kalawao and Kalaupapa.
While Rachel’s story is fictional, Brennert acknowledges that some of the characters in the novel were loosely based upon people who had actually lived at Kalaupapa. Brennert wisely creates composite characters, taking bits and pieces from the historical records and correspondence of the time. The result is deeply affecting and rich characters, and a portrait of a people who took the worst of times and lived quiet, dignified lives a world away from their families and friends who seemed to have forgotten them. One of the pieces I am grateful that Brennert worked in was the presence of the Mahu, the gay Hawaiians who lived and breathed and were likely committed to Kalaupapa. While at first glance the Mahu character might teeter on stereotype, Brennert creates a very full character that overcomes the stereotypes.
Brennert’s prose is also quiet. Simply, he creates a realism that never dares cross into exoticism of Hawai’i or of its people, but still manages to depict environ most have never experienced. He captures the idyllic setting and peoples it with human beings full of faults and foibles and courage. We get to see our heroine Rachel grow up, fall in love, marry, as well as grieve the friends (and family) who come and go out of her life throughout the decades. We are given the joys she experiences, as well as the lows, and as we live Rachel’s life right along with her, we feel almost privileged to have met these remarkable people and shared in their indomitable spirit, if only for a brief time.
One of the potential pitfalls for any piece of historical fiction is info-dumping, throwing historical facts in to give the proper perspective. When handled ineptly, passages of books can begin to feel like history lessons forced upon the reader. For the most part, Brennert avoids this masterfully. Almost never does any information feel unnecessary or forced, an author showing off his research abilities. It is all woven beautifully into the prose, amazing considering the historical events depicted: the death of a King, the overthrow of a Monarchy, the advent of radio and electricity, the dawning of statehood, the bombing of a harbor. It all fits.
If I have any nit-picking to do with respect to this story, it is that, at times, the dialog feels almost too contemporary, more 21st century than late 19th. But this is a minor quibble. In the end, Brennert creates a moving story and one of the most memorable heroines I have ever met, a young girl who blossoms into womanhood and manages to live a remarkable life.
The breadth and beauty of this novel cannot be understated, and the fact that Brennert takes a difficult period of Hawaiian history and the topic of leprosy that some might find horrific and creates a life-affirming story of love and perseverance without ever venturing into maudlin sentimentality is something to be lauded. Memorable characters, memorable lives lived with dignity. I couldn’t ask for more in a piece of historical fiction.
Like the titular edifice, The Tea House is a bit of a mystery, a solid debut by Paul Elwork which, in some respects, defies description or categorizatLike the titular edifice, The Tea House is a bit of a mystery, a solid debut by Paul Elwork which, in some respects, defies description or categorization. It is a novel that goes down easily, with evocative prose and an unparalleled sense of time and place, but it is also a story that haunts your memory long after you’ve finished it, even though–and perhaps because–you are only given a quick glance inside, a moment in time to find all the lives and secrets hovering in its darkened corners.
At once profoundly simple and deceptively complex, The Tea House focuses on that tenuous period of time when the world had lost its innocence in the War to End All Wars, but had yet to realize the true horrors that lay ahead in WWII. It is the summer of 1925, and at Ravenwood, a family estate on the banks of the Delaware River, 13 year-old twins Emily and Michael Ward find themselves fatherless, a bit bored with their lives and perched on the edge of an encroaching adulthood that seems far too close, yet so very far away. Emily discovers that she has a unique talent–she is able to manipulate the bones in her ankle to make a popping sound, one seemingly without origin. One night she uses her talent to frighten her brother by pretending to be a ghost, the knocking a form of communication from one world to the next. The brooding, almost morose, Michael finds excitement in his sister’s talent, a grand adventure, and very quickly he hatches a plan to convince some neighborhood friends that his sister can commune with the dead. In particular, says Michael, Emily has a special connection with Regina Ward, one of their ancestors, a young woman who died tragically on the banks of the river and whose photograph has haunted Emily.
It is a game in which Emily gladly participates, but as news of her “spirit knocking” spreads to adults, and the twins begin to enjoy their new found (albeit limited) fame, their summer magic threatens to unravel the secrets and ghosts of their own family and the families of others whose lives have been decimated by the war.
Like the better films of Robert Altman and the more accessible works of Anton Chekhov, The Tea House is at its core a deeply rich character study, not only of people, but of a fading innocence, a decaying lifestyle and the transitory unease of impending adulthood. The plot is simple and straightforward and the beauty of this story is that it can be enjoyed on both levels: as the simple, misguided summer adventure of two young children, or as the broader character study.
Although the novel is rife with imagery and metaphor, author Elwork never once hammers us over the head with it. Like the novel as a whole, it is all done subtly, with a keen eye for detail and a steady, easy prose. From the beginning, Elwork captures the boredom of childhood, the loss of the family patriarch, and the silence that threatens to swallow up the adults in the Ward family and, really, the entire world. The result is a relaxed, yet brooding prose that never hurries and always carries with it a sense of danger, of impending doom. There are no bumps or scares here, but the novel is most definitely a story of ghosts, of the loss of which no one will speak. In that respect, the novel works on another level, as a suspense piece in the best Hitchcockian tradition.
Told primarily from the point of view of Emily, we are taken on a journey as the young girl, in a desire to create more ghosts for their harmless charade, becomes fascinated with the story of her own family and begins to discover its history, the relationship of her parents and the things she has never known or even wanted to know before now. We see Emily discovering her roots and what the loss of her father has meant to each and every member of the family. It is then that the Tea House becomes–for me at least–the elephant in the room, that thing that hovers about each and everyone in the world. It is there, on the grounds of Ravenwood, but rarely does anyone go inside and no one, save the children, speak of it, enjoy it. Like all the men lost in the war (the lack of men in this world becomes almost a character in itself), the Tea House is never really forgotten by the adults, but neither is it spoken of. And, as we discover, Emily and Michael’s family is not the only one with secrets and regrets and deafening silence around them.
If I had to find any flaws, for me it is that, at times, Emily and Michael’s dialog felt more adult than their chronological age, but that could be the result of the accurate portrayal of that age’s formality of speaking. And there are one or two times when the pace could have been quickened ever so slightly. But these are minor, minor quibbles, almost hardly worth mentioning.
In the end, this piece works on so many levels it is hard to choose my favorite aspects. The character are well-drawn without being overwrought and even those lost to the war blossom into full, rich characters (some worthy of their own novels) as Emily learns more about them, about the lives she never knew they led, about their lost childhoods. The prose ventures into truly beautiful areas without every turning purple, and the tone perfectly captures a time and a place that can never be regained. It is truly a coming-of-age story in the very best sense of the phrase; yet it manages to be very much more. A very impressive character study that makes me want to see what other stories Elwork has in him.
What could possibly be worse than being “one of the odd ones,” an outcast in the small town where you grew up, a place where everyone knows everyone eWhat could possibly be worse than being “one of the odd ones,” an outcast in the small town where you grew up, a place where everyone knows everyone else? How about being a gay outcast? Sure, but how about being a gay outcast that attracts the spirits of the undead? Such is the premise of Steve Berman’s charming Vintage: A Ghost Story, a Young Adult novel with enough in to also satisfy the not-so-young adults out there.
Told in the first person, Vintage focuses on an unnamed (and, therefore, universal) seventeen-year-old boy and his insular group of friends, a family made up of outsiders. Our hero—having recently run away from home and dropped out of high school when his parents discovered he was gay—lives with his likeable, albeit a bit dense (or is she?) Aunt Jan, and passes the time with his best friend Trace, a similarly disaffected young woman. He is young and full of hormones and that exquisite longing for someone to love, someone to help him take his sexuality beyond the theoretical, the bedroom fantasies. The problem is, our hero doesn’t believe any boy would really be interested in him. So, he mostly hangs out with Trace, and the duo try to pass the boredom of their lives by dressing in dark clothes, drinking exotic beverages and attending random funerals that feed their interest in all things occult.
Now, don’t be deceived. Berman may have wrapped his characters in the trappings of the goth scene, but he expertly avoids the character clichés: the faux bravado of goths, the pretentiousness, the acid-dropping recklessness. Berman keeps the characters firmly rooted in reality, imbuing them with the very tangible concerns and fears of youth without ever pushing them into melodrama. The protagonist and Trace have simply adopted some of the aspects of goth as a sort of armor, making themselves stand out before others have a chance to point at them and laugh for their differences. Filtering in and out of our hero and Trace’s lives are a teen lesbian couple, Maggie and Liz, and Trace’s brother, Second Mike—so called as his mother named him Mike after her first son who’d run away and was presumed dead. Second Mike is a typical younger brother, fifteen and standing on the sidelines with admiration, hovering about the older kids in his sister’s life, sometimes annoyingly so.
One night while walking home from Trace’s, our protagonist heads down Route 47 and stumbles upon the ghost of a high school football star who was killed on that road some 50 years before. Though our hero had heard the story before, it never involved the ghost speaking to anyone, and when our hero convinces Trace to come out to the highway on another night, he is amazed to learn that the ghost only speaks to him and no one else. Smitten, he obsesses on the ghost, on his good looks, his vintage physique, and finds himself inexplicably “falling” for him. In short, our hero has found someone who–he believes–in the real world would never, ever give him the time of day, someone who makes him feel special. But as the protagonist has more and more encounters with his ghostly boyfriend and learns that the jock isn’t the only ghost that has taken an interest in him, things begin to feel a little more dangerous. What is it really that this ghost wants? Is he as gentle and loving as he seems? Or are there darker needs feeding this phantom’s desire for our hero, some need that could prove fatal to all involved.
In Vintage, Berman has created a kindler, gentler, and, dare I say it, a vintage ghost story–one that harkens back to the urban legends of our youths, when tales of these types were devoid of massive gore or spatterpunk’s cynicism. Wisely, Berman never pushes things too far and mines humor where he can to keep things on track. When the boy finds himself falling in love with a ghost, the author is wise enough to have his characters understand the absurdity of that notion. And when our hero begins to see more and more ghosts, he sees the humor in it. When did I become the kid from The Sixth Sense? In short, Berman knows just how far he can take the characters and the result is that they are kept very real, very appealing because they are more than stereotypes.
Berman also finds some really nice ways to pack a lot of character information into very few words. Just by the fact that Second Mike was named after his dead brother, we’re given a history without ever having to delve into its constituent parts. We can imagine what it must have been like for Second Mike to grow up in the shadow of a brother who had lived and died before he was even born. And we learn a lot about our protagonist, about his outlook on life from two simple sentences: I always thought my life would end up as an Araki film. Nothing by Burton. Trace is also nicely full character, a girl on the outside who is blooming into a womanhood of her own, even as our protagonist becomes more comfortable with himself, his orientation and the world about him. She is more than a “hag.” She’s a woman who is best friends with our gay hero, but not co-dependent with him; not so wrapped up in him and his feelings that she puts her own life on the sidelines. Very nice.
With Trace, Second Mike and our protagonist, we have a nice trio of likeable, yet flawed characters and the piece works best when it stays focused on them and the plot. When we start wandering too far away from those three or the central story, the characters get a little thinner and the pace a little slower. Maggie and Liz tend to be drawn with a coarser brush than our core characters (I often go them confused as they seemed somewhat interchangeable), and the subplot with their characters is not as strong as it probably could have been had their personalities been drawn a little fuller, more distinctive. But in the end, the focus returns to the core group and the pace goes back to its nice, easy flow.
In the end, Berman has written a very, very nice YA piece that says a lot about self-acceptance, seeing beyond one’s self, learning to recognize the good that may be right under your own nose, and discovering that love is more than infatuation or hormones. Yet, Vintage is never preachy and Berman never hammers any message home. Like the prose, it all just easily woven into the mesh of the book. A charming read that is part coming-of-age, part love story, and part horror story (with some genuinely creepy moments), Vintage may be directed at Young Adults, but its story is one which should appeal to a wide variety of ages.
dear mr. montgomery clift, i want one thing only. please bring my mama back to me. safe. with no more bruises. i will wait one week. if December 4, 1976
dear mr. montgomery clift, i want one thing only. please bring my mama back to me. safe. with no more bruises. i will wait one week. if nothing bad happens then i know it is ok to write you. Sign bong bong luwad
With that one child-like letter, author Noel Alumit sets a haunting tone that carries on throughout his remarkable debut novel, Letters to Montgomery Clift. But not only does that letter mark the beginning of the story, it is also the start of a long and sometime intimate relationship that young Bong Bong Luwad develops with Mr. Montgomery Clift, the dead, sexually confused actor who starred in such films as From Here to Eternity and The Search. But don’t let this tone fool you. Letters to Montgomery Clift is not a downer of a book. It is at its heart a story about love, about growing up and coming out, about enduring and overcoming, and, most of all, about going home.
We learn that Bong Bong’s story starts before he discovers the cinema persona of Mr. Clift and, in fact, before he ever comes to America. Born in the Philippines during that country’s most repressive regimes, Bong Bong is witness to the thugs of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos beating his mother and father, both democratic activists, and carting his father away to some unknown location. His mother, fearing for her boy, manages to smuggle Bong Bong out of the Philippines, sending him to live with his auntie in the United States of America and vowing that she and her husband will join him there soon. It is a promise Bong Bong holds onto dearly as the first people in his family begin to “disappear.”
In Los Angeles, Bong Bong lives with his Auntie Yuna, an abusive, alcoholic woman whose life has not gone as she thought it would. Though life with her is fairly toxic, Bong Bong is still with family and he knows deep down that it won’t be long before his Mama and Papa come for him. But when time passes and life with Yuna becomes more and more unstable, Bong Bong begins to wonder just when his parents will fulfill their promise.
One night, the devoutly Catholic Yuna tell young Bong Bong about why she prays, how she prays. It’s better, she says, to write them down, otherwise the prayers just go from your head into thin air. And it is even better to send the prayers to dead relatives because, Dead relatives already know you and you know them. People will do things for people they know. God knows everyone and treats everyone the same. I want to ask a favor from someone who will give better treatment.
Not knowing any of his relatives, Bong Bong doesn’t know to whom he should direct his prayers. Then one night, while watching The Search on television, he is struck by the kindhearted soldier, played by Mr. Clift, who cares for a young boy until his mother returns. Bong Bong decides that if Mr. Clift helped that young boy, surely he would so the same for him. Mr. Clift becomes his patron saint, and Bong Bong begins writing prayers to him, a habit that will continue for years and become very nearly his only means of emotional support.
Auntie Yuna, Bong Bong discovers, is also somewhat of a busy-body, constantly keeping an eye on the rather attractive man next door and his floozy (to her anyway) girlfriend. While she wishes the man’s attentions were being paid to her, Yuna tells Bong Bong that the man is evil. Through the wall, Bong Bong hears the sounds that Mr. Evil and his girlfriend make at night and becomes fascinated with the man, spying on him at one point because he wants to see what evil looks like. Mr. Clift…evil is real good looking. Soon, though, Bong Bong, Mr. Evil and his girlfriend become friends, and Bong Bong finds a support sorely lacking in his life. That is until Mr. Evil gets a job that transfers him away, and yet two more people disappear from Bong Bong’s life. When Auntie Yuna vanishes, too, on her way to a liquor store, Bong Bong is left alone to fend for himself until showing up on Social Services’ radar.
Cut off from all family, absent parents whose love he is beginning to doubt, Bong Bong is shuffled from bad foster home to bad foster home. Ultimately, he lands with an affluent Filipino-American family and though the situation seems ideal, the hole in Bong Bong (now rechristened Bob) only widens, and slowly his need for Mr. Clift becomes desperate, all-consuming, obsessive-compulsive. As he grows into adulthood he becomes as self destructive as Mr. Clift had been, and when he discovers that his new family has skeletons of their own in their closet, everything comes to a boil. His life—and sanity—starts spiraling out of control. Where does Bong Bong go from here? Can Mr. Clift save him the way he did that little boy in the movie? And whatever became of his parents who never, ever seemed to want to come to him.
Alumit packs a lot into this novel—the political climate of the Philippines, the cultural significance of religion in Filipino families, self abuse, mental illness, teen pregnancy, burgeoning awareness of sexuality, but never once does it feel crowded or overwrought. More importantly, it never gets in the way of Bong Bong’s story. Each of these things is simply an aspect of his life, the multitude of things that swirl about him. The focus remains solely on our protagonist. Part of this is due to Alumit’s expert use of clean, simple language. Bong Bong’s voice does indeed “change” as he gets older, but the author always keeps the prose sharply focused and to the point, and the letters to Mr. Clift which start each chapter give a cohesive feel even as the character’s narrative voice grows up.
Alumit also has an expert eye for real-life dialog and the little details that make up lives. The result is that the setting and the characters are full without feeling overworked. And we are treated to a protagonist who is eminently appealing and someone you want to root for. You hurt for him when things are bad and brighten when something good comes his way. But this also extends to even the less immediately likable characters such as Auntie Yuna who, despite her problems, the reader is never made to despise her. In fact, you develop an empathy for this broken woman, and though it is not easy, you can even come to forgive her a little for her foibles.
And when it comes to Bong Bong’s parents, by their absence they become as strong a character as any other in the novel, their spirit omnipresent. It’s remarkable that characters who appear so briefly in the novel seem to grow as the story does, and your feelings toward them shift as does Bong Bong’s. One moment you love them and the next, you hate them for leaving their son alone.
Perhaps the strongest relationship in the book is the relationship between Bong Bong and Mr. Clift. For an illusory relationship, it is a strong and appealing one. Bong Bong finds in him a saint, a friend, a mentor, a lover, a father and a faulty role model. Clift becomes the mirror for Bong Bong, the sole source of support, and a measure of comfort. And then he becomes a crutch that Bong Bong simply can’t let go of, because he cannot deal with someone else in his life diasppearing.
Something wonderful about this book is that Bong Bong—unlike Mr. Clift—never seems conflicted about his sexuality. Certainly, he has issues around it, but as for angst over being gay, Bong Bong is remarkably free of that, a fact I greatly appreciated. In a very real sense, this is a coming of age story, but it is not as so many novels people with gay characters, a sexual coming of age.
Alumit dedicates his book “To those who have Disappeared,” and loss—loss of family, loss of political freedoms, loss of human contact—is the driving theme of the novel and it is what defines Bong Bong Luwad, at the very least, in his own mind. Despite this and to Alumit’s immense credit, although the novel can be an emotional roller coaster, the loss is balanced with an optimism which at times seems to defy logic, almost crossing into faith. As bad as things get for Bong Bong, there is still that faint glimmer of hope burning in him that refuses to be snuffed out, a hope that pushes him to move forward and yet drives him to the brink of insanity.
By books’ end, Alumit has taken us on a terribly affecting emotional journey of sorrow and loss and joy and resignation, yet the hope pervading the novel resonates deeply, ultimately creating a remarkably uplifting story of love—for one’s family and for one’s self—of growth and of survival and new beginnings.
It is a novel for which I have great fondness and respect and I cannot recommend it strongly enough.
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