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liri
I read a book worse than Twilight this semester. Worse than ANYTHING. Cut for epic length and for content many have described as triggering, including animal death and rape. I don't know if it's 'triggering' that makes me shake with fury, but whatever.
Chinese Handcuffs, by Chris Crutcher. Something about Chris Crutcher - his books, like Final Fantasy games, all tend to have around the same plot. In his case, this mean the protagonist will be a boy in high school who's athletic but not a "jock," though Crutcher seems to define jock differently than I do. (I define it as "athletic and an asshole," which covers a lot of ground, including, arguably, both the Crutcher protagonists I've encountered, while he seems to mean "athletic and a darling of the school administration," like football stars.) The lead guy will have a friend, usually female, who's got an abusive situation at home; it falls on him to help her somehow, made more complicated by the fact she doesn't want the authorities involved.
The plot of this book in particular, at a bare outline, goes like this... Dillon is the main character. He's a good athlete who refuses to compete in school sports apparently just to piss off the principal; instead he takes part in triathlons, and works as manager for the girls' basketball team. He also writes letters to his older brother, Preston, who shot himself in front of Dillon two years before the events of the book. After become paraplegic in a motorcycle accident and developing an omnivorous drug problem, not necessarily in that order, but it's not altogether clear. Dillon is kind of in love with Preston's girlfriend, Stacy, who was a childhood friend to both of them, and managed to get impregnated by Preston shortly before Preston's death. He's also kind of in love with Jennifer, the basketball team's star, who's been sexually abused first by her biological dad and then, for many years, by her stepdad. The pregnancy and the abuse are both revealed to Dillon over the course of the book; the narrative cuts between third-person, using both Dillon's and Jennifer's POVs and a few other characters briefly, and the letters Dillon writes to the late Preston.
So, there's all that - one reviewer commented that while it's fine to introduce issues teenagers really face, you probably don't want all of them in the same book. And then there's the fact that I wanted to beat the narrator with a lead pipe.
One of the first flashbacks in the book is to Dillon and Preston, at the ages of 8 and 10, luring a neighbor's cat into a trap so they can beat it to death. That alone threw me into a fury; I have to spend an entire book with this little shit? They immediately feel guilty, but the cat is just as dead no matter how they feel. Then, in one of his letters to the "now I'm GLAD he's dead" Preston, Dillon mentions that he eventually told Stacy, the childhood friend, about that incident. I quote: "[S]he said it was a leak, a wrinkle where the coordinates of our individual time and circumstance come together at an odd angle and a crack appears in the structure we've built to keep ourselves decent, and our own personal evil seeps out." Which is a real fancy bullshit way of not saying "you probably have people's body parts in your fridge." I mean, wtf? Most people do not need an elaborate moral structure to keep themselves from purposely torturing and killing an animal. Who the HELL reacts to something like that in those terms? Most people I know would react to a confession like that with "Okay, I'm glad you feel guilty, and I wonder why you're telling me this now but I'm not sure I want to know. Now get out of my house and away from my cats, you fucking psychopath." At least I would.
So I already hated the protagonist I was stuck with, and I knew the book was about sexual abuse so I was braced for worse to come. I wasn't exactly anticipating the worst part.
Dillon, in his letters to Preston two years after Preston's suicide, harks back to the night of the suicide itself. The flashback switches to third person, I guess so as not to overstrain the letter device - Dillon's not going to rehash Preston's final speech to Preston. This also means that, presumably, what we get is what was actually said, nothing misremembered or inaccurate, though this isn't a book that plays much with unreliable narrators and subtle POV tricks. Preston - confined to a wheelchair, remember - gets Dillon to come with him for some target practice out in the woods. Once they're out away from home, Preston puts a gun to his own head and starts talking. He pins a lot of his low self-esteem on Dillon, who looks just like him but is better at a lot of things. He spent a lot of time with a biker gang, even after he was paralyzed, and went to a bar where they hung out.
The previous night, he went to the bar, got jacked up on non-specific drugs, and watched a gang rape. There was a girl in the bar, skimpily dressed, who wasn't part of the usual biker crowd; someone, possibly Preston, suggests they "give this honey some of what she was asking for." So the gang's leader picks her up, throws her on the pool table and rapes her, and "then they line up." Preston keeps stopping, looking down or away from Dillon, describing the girl's fear (the girl is never named) and says "by the time they were halfway through, she was dead behind her eyes." He's not gloating; he's clearly shaken and horrified, even though he says at the time he was cheering them on. Then they decide to give Preston a turn, so they put him on the table and force the girl, at knifepoint, to get on top of him. When they're not paying attention, she passes out, or pretends to, and falls off. Preston closes with "No one but me even noticed. It was over for them when they sat her on the cripple." Then he brings up the cat they killed, and says that back when they killed it, he told himself "if I ever got that far out again - any time in my life - well, that would be the end of me," and adds that last night was it. Then he shoots himself.
Okay, it's reasonable that at the time he tells Dillon the story, Dillon's more concerned with "my brother wants to shoot himself in the head." I dislike being made to spend multiple pages on a first-person description of taking part in a gang rape, but (a) at least he feels guilty, and (b) at least he gives himself the death penalty. The really bad part comes later, when Dillon brings it up the one and only time he ever will. I've already made it clear I think Dillon is a worthless shit-smear. The book doesn't agree. It has Jennifer, the female lead, who's been sexually abused all her life and is understandably leary of dating, agree to a date with him because he's "gentle and respectful" and generally a trustworthy, decent guy. I think he's later called "one of the good ones," or something. The book attempts to bear this out with his reaction when she tells him about her stepfather's abuse. But it also gives us a flashback to shortly after Preston's funeral.
Dillon goes to the bar where the rape occurred, the bikers' favorite hangout. He has Preston's ashes in hand and he funnels some of them into the motorcycle fuel tanks by way of vandalism, and then he stomps in to confront the bikers. He declares that Preston killed himself, and says (emphasis mine): "He probably had a lot of reasons, but the one that pushed him over the edge was being humiliated beyond endurance right here in this wonderful little yuppie watering hole."
YES, BECAUSE NOT GETTING YOUR FAIR SHARE OF A GANG RAPE IS CERTAINLY HUMILIATING AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT PRESTON WAS TRYING TO TELL YOU, YOU SICK FUCK. OH MY GOD.
That is the last anyone ever mentions it. Not long after that flashback, Dillon learns about Jennifer's sexual abuse at her stepfather's hands. He's appropriately appalled and everything (though he's also sexually attracted to her; it's like Crutcher was trying to weave in some complicated thread about rape culture but then forgot about it. He also has the girls' basketball coach throw in a speech about how the commodification of women leads to abusive situations, which would be kind of refreshing to see in a YA novel if it weren't in the same book as "my brother didn't get his slice of rape!") He never once thinks about how Jennifer being raped by her stepdad is like that poor nameless girl being raped by a bunch of bikers. He just... never thinks of it again. If he ever did think back to it, it would be easier to accept "he had other things on his mind," but... nope. He just forgets. He goes on to, through a contrived series of events, run Jennifer's sociopathic stepdad out of town, and an epilogue has the stepfather being arrested. And later, Dillon will go to try to make amends to the lady whose cat he killed; she's senile and doesn't remember the cat's dead, and Dillon thinks that there are some things you can't make right. Yeah, like the RAPE your brother was an accessory to? He doesn't think of it even then.
And it gets even worse, because when I went looking for information on this, hoping like hell there'd be some debate or controversy or SOMETHING, instead I find teacher's guides. Some people teach this book in high school classes. There was nothing in the teacher's guides on guiding the discussion about the rape that goes unpunished and forgotten. I was the first of my classmates to bring it up in the class discussion. No one seems to even notice. I know POV is powerful, but come on! Is it THAT hard to shake out of the worthless little shit's head for five seconds? Because, honestly, I can't consider someone who's capable of thinking "it's unfair he didn't get his turn at raping that girl" a human being.
Short version: There is no short version. I hate this book. All other awful books - this semester and forevermore - get measured against "does the protagonist ever kill a cat and/or act like rape is okay under certain circumstances, and still get treated by the author as if he's not a psychopath?"
Chinese Handcuffs, by Chris Crutcher. Something about Chris Crutcher - his books, like Final Fantasy games, all tend to have around the same plot. In his case, this mean the protagonist will be a boy in high school who's athletic but not a "jock," though Crutcher seems to define jock differently than I do. (I define it as "athletic and an asshole," which covers a lot of ground, including, arguably, both the Crutcher protagonists I've encountered, while he seems to mean "athletic and a darling of the school administration," like football stars.) The lead guy will have a friend, usually female, who's got an abusive situation at home; it falls on him to help her somehow, made more complicated by the fact she doesn't want the authorities involved.
The plot of this book in particular, at a bare outline, goes like this... Dillon is the main character. He's a good athlete who refuses to compete in school sports apparently just to piss off the principal; instead he takes part in triathlons, and works as manager for the girls' basketball team. He also writes letters to his older brother, Preston, who shot himself in front of Dillon two years before the events of the book. After become paraplegic in a motorcycle accident and developing an omnivorous drug problem, not necessarily in that order, but it's not altogether clear. Dillon is kind of in love with Preston's girlfriend, Stacy, who was a childhood friend to both of them, and managed to get impregnated by Preston shortly before Preston's death. He's also kind of in love with Jennifer, the basketball team's star, who's been sexually abused first by her biological dad and then, for many years, by her stepdad. The pregnancy and the abuse are both revealed to Dillon over the course of the book; the narrative cuts between third-person, using both Dillon's and Jennifer's POVs and a few other characters briefly, and the letters Dillon writes to the late Preston.
So, there's all that - one reviewer commented that while it's fine to introduce issues teenagers really face, you probably don't want all of them in the same book. And then there's the fact that I wanted to beat the narrator with a lead pipe.
One of the first flashbacks in the book is to Dillon and Preston, at the ages of 8 and 10, luring a neighbor's cat into a trap so they can beat it to death. That alone threw me into a fury; I have to spend an entire book with this little shit? They immediately feel guilty, but the cat is just as dead no matter how they feel. Then, in one of his letters to the "now I'm GLAD he's dead" Preston, Dillon mentions that he eventually told Stacy, the childhood friend, about that incident. I quote: "[S]he said it was a leak, a wrinkle where the coordinates of our individual time and circumstance come together at an odd angle and a crack appears in the structure we've built to keep ourselves decent, and our own personal evil seeps out." Which is a real fancy bullshit way of not saying "you probably have people's body parts in your fridge." I mean, wtf? Most people do not need an elaborate moral structure to keep themselves from purposely torturing and killing an animal. Who the HELL reacts to something like that in those terms? Most people I know would react to a confession like that with "Okay, I'm glad you feel guilty, and I wonder why you're telling me this now but I'm not sure I want to know. Now get out of my house and away from my cats, you fucking psychopath." At least I would.
So I already hated the protagonist I was stuck with, and I knew the book was about sexual abuse so I was braced for worse to come. I wasn't exactly anticipating the worst part.
Dillon, in his letters to Preston two years after Preston's suicide, harks back to the night of the suicide itself. The flashback switches to third person, I guess so as not to overstrain the letter device - Dillon's not going to rehash Preston's final speech to Preston. This also means that, presumably, what we get is what was actually said, nothing misremembered or inaccurate, though this isn't a book that plays much with unreliable narrators and subtle POV tricks. Preston - confined to a wheelchair, remember - gets Dillon to come with him for some target practice out in the woods. Once they're out away from home, Preston puts a gun to his own head and starts talking. He pins a lot of his low self-esteem on Dillon, who looks just like him but is better at a lot of things. He spent a lot of time with a biker gang, even after he was paralyzed, and went to a bar where they hung out.
The previous night, he went to the bar, got jacked up on non-specific drugs, and watched a gang rape. There was a girl in the bar, skimpily dressed, who wasn't part of the usual biker crowd; someone, possibly Preston, suggests they "give this honey some of what she was asking for." So the gang's leader picks her up, throws her on the pool table and rapes her, and "then they line up." Preston keeps stopping, looking down or away from Dillon, describing the girl's fear (the girl is never named) and says "by the time they were halfway through, she was dead behind her eyes." He's not gloating; he's clearly shaken and horrified, even though he says at the time he was cheering them on. Then they decide to give Preston a turn, so they put him on the table and force the girl, at knifepoint, to get on top of him. When they're not paying attention, she passes out, or pretends to, and falls off. Preston closes with "No one but me even noticed. It was over for them when they sat her on the cripple." Then he brings up the cat they killed, and says that back when they killed it, he told himself "if I ever got that far out again - any time in my life - well, that would be the end of me," and adds that last night was it. Then he shoots himself.
Okay, it's reasonable that at the time he tells Dillon the story, Dillon's more concerned with "my brother wants to shoot himself in the head." I dislike being made to spend multiple pages on a first-person description of taking part in a gang rape, but (a) at least he feels guilty, and (b) at least he gives himself the death penalty. The really bad part comes later, when Dillon brings it up the one and only time he ever will. I've already made it clear I think Dillon is a worthless shit-smear. The book doesn't agree. It has Jennifer, the female lead, who's been sexually abused all her life and is understandably leary of dating, agree to a date with him because he's "gentle and respectful" and generally a trustworthy, decent guy. I think he's later called "one of the good ones," or something. The book attempts to bear this out with his reaction when she tells him about her stepfather's abuse. But it also gives us a flashback to shortly after Preston's funeral.
Dillon goes to the bar where the rape occurred, the bikers' favorite hangout. He has Preston's ashes in hand and he funnels some of them into the motorcycle fuel tanks by way of vandalism, and then he stomps in to confront the bikers. He declares that Preston killed himself, and says (emphasis mine): "He probably had a lot of reasons, but the one that pushed him over the edge was being humiliated beyond endurance right here in this wonderful little yuppie watering hole."
YES, BECAUSE NOT GETTING YOUR FAIR SHARE OF A GANG RAPE IS CERTAINLY HUMILIATING AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT PRESTON WAS TRYING TO TELL YOU, YOU SICK FUCK. OH MY GOD.
That is the last anyone ever mentions it. Not long after that flashback, Dillon learns about Jennifer's sexual abuse at her stepfather's hands. He's appropriately appalled and everything (though he's also sexually attracted to her; it's like Crutcher was trying to weave in some complicated thread about rape culture but then forgot about it. He also has the girls' basketball coach throw in a speech about how the commodification of women leads to abusive situations, which would be kind of refreshing to see in a YA novel if it weren't in the same book as "my brother didn't get his slice of rape!") He never once thinks about how Jennifer being raped by her stepdad is like that poor nameless girl being raped by a bunch of bikers. He just... never thinks of it again. If he ever did think back to it, it would be easier to accept "he had other things on his mind," but... nope. He just forgets. He goes on to, through a contrived series of events, run Jennifer's sociopathic stepdad out of town, and an epilogue has the stepfather being arrested. And later, Dillon will go to try to make amends to the lady whose cat he killed; she's senile and doesn't remember the cat's dead, and Dillon thinks that there are some things you can't make right. Yeah, like the RAPE your brother was an accessory to? He doesn't think of it even then.
And it gets even worse, because when I went looking for information on this, hoping like hell there'd be some debate or controversy or SOMETHING, instead I find teacher's guides. Some people teach this book in high school classes. There was nothing in the teacher's guides on guiding the discussion about the rape that goes unpunished and forgotten. I was the first of my classmates to bring it up in the class discussion. No one seems to even notice. I know POV is powerful, but come on! Is it THAT hard to shake out of the worthless little shit's head for five seconds? Because, honestly, I can't consider someone who's capable of thinking "it's unfair he didn't get his turn at raping that girl" a human being.
Short version: There is no short version. I hate this book. All other awful books - this semester and forevermore - get measured against "does the protagonist ever kill a cat and/or act like rape is okay under certain circumstances, and still get treated by the author as if he's not a psychopath?"
(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-17 04:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-17 08:50 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-05-22 08:56 pm (UTC)Beating a cat to death is a moral leak that just happens because of circumstances? Um, I thought everyone knew that childhood animal abuse is, um, BIG RED FLAG.
And I am pretty much speechless over the silence of teacher's guides, etc, on the rape issue. (I suppose it would've been too much to expect that Dillon go to the police to report it?) Actually, I'm trying to find a way to type spluttering incoherent rage over that whole bit, but failing.