7. My Career Goes Bung

By Miles Franklin

15. Son of a Trickster

By Eden Robinson

1. Julie of the Wolves

By Jean Craighead George

 

2. Rule of the Bone

By Russell Banks

I spotted this mildly dog-eared trade paperback on the giveaway shelf at work. I’ve heard of the author, mostly because of The Sweet Hereafter, but have never heard of Rule of the Bone, which is a bit of a shame, since being about a teenager growing up during the 1990’s, it would’ve been in my wheelhouse. The blurb made the novel sound like it would feature a cool, modern anti-hero, so I thought what the heck, let’s give this a whirl.

 Travel is good for you, I kept saying to myself, it broadens you and extends your horizons et cetera but way down deep I was wishing I was back in Plattsburgh in the schoolbus again, just another homeless northcountry mall rat dodging the cops and copping a J now and then and spare-changing my way from day to day until my mom finally saw the light and split from Ken so I could go home and grow up living with her as her son again. 

This quote near the end of the book pretty much sums up the entire storyline. Fourteen year old Chapman “Chappie” Dorset gets kicked out of his mom’s house after squandering his collectible coin inheritance to buy weed. The kid’s full of attitude, but unbeknownst to his mom, the reader discovers  later that he’s been abused by his stepfather, Ken. From then on, we follow Chappie on his many misadventures, including couch-surfing at his best friend Russ’ place who lives with the leader of the local biker gang called Adirondack Iron. An accidental fire destroys the crummy apartment and kills the biker, so Chappie and Russ run away from Au Sable and take refuge in a boarded up summer house in the Adirondacks.

At some point Chappie adopts the new name Bone, but he and Russ have a falling out, so Bone is left on his own. The first two thirds of the book was great, especially the part where Bone rescues a little girl named Froggy from the creep Buster Brown and then encounters an old Rastafarian dude named I-Man in an abandoned schoolbus. The three form an unlikely ad hoc family where they make the schoolbus their home and live quite self-sufficiently by dumpster-diving at the nearby supermarket and making healthy Ital meals with the barely spoilt fruits and vegetables they acquire.

Sadly, however, the novel seems to lose focus and momentum after Bone, on a spur of the moment, flies to Jamaica with I-Man and quickly ingratiates himself into the local drug trade. Not only that, somehow Bone also ends up spotting his long lost father in Montego Bay. They get along at first, but eventually his dad turns out to be fairly lame in that he doesn't serve much purpose as a character. He doesn't affect any change in Bone, and the only plot point he serves is to get I-Man killed because he screwed his girlfriend. I’m also left wondering how I-Man, who had such a sweet setup with his cannibus farm and reliable crew of dealers and traffickers, ended up destitute in upstate New York? Of course, Banks does not explore much of I-Man’s history.

Critics have made comparisons of this book to Catcher in the Rye and Huckleberry Finn. Sure, Banks sometimes tries a little too hard to make Bone the Holden Caulfield of the 1990’s. But I enjoyed reading this novel for the most part and found the character of Bone quite engaging and insightful. Banks did a good job being consistent with Bone’s voice and there was some really good writing there. It’s not going to go down in the annals of literature as a classic, but it was a pretty decent read.

Basically people don’t know how kids think, I guess they forget. But when you’re a kid it’s like you’re wearing these binoculars strapped to your eyes and you can’t see anything except what’s in the dead center of the lenses because you’re too scared of everything else or else you don’t understand it and people expect you to, so you feel stupid all the time. Mostly a lot of stuff just doesn’t get registered. You’re always fucking up and there’s a lot that you don’t even see that people expect you to see, like the time after my thirteenth birthday when my grandmother asked me if I got the ten dollars and the birthday card she sent me. I said to her I don’t know and she started dissing me to my mom and all. But it was true, I really didn’t know. And I wasn’t even into drugs then.

12. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

By Jacqueline Kelly

I’m generally fond of coming of age tales and 19th century naturalists, so when I heard about this YA novel about a 12-year-old girl in turn of the century rural Texas who bonds with her distant grandfather by studying the natural world around them, I couldn’t resist and requested this as a Christmas gift.

I’m also glad that I delayed reading this until my summer vacation in Northern California, where we explored parts of the Sierra Foothills, Lake Oroville, the Redwood Forests, and the coastal sand dunes. Our trip culminated in a stay at a lovely garden cottage, where we saw a variety of birds. The surroundings provided the perfect backdrop to read Kelly's passages describing how Calpurnia and Grandfather Tate observe the wildlife on their estate.

Kelly has an engaging, naturalistic style which suits the realistic character-driven story about a girl with a thirst for knowledge who is obviously torn between her duties as a dutiful daughter and striking out on her own in some way despite 19th century restrictions. There are no dramatic arches or life-changing revelations for Calpurnia that tend to occur in coming-of-age novels, and the young heroine, portrayed as innately curious, intelligent and observant, was also refreshingly free of the annoying trappings of the “precocious adolescent” found in way too many books of this ilk.  Calpurnia spoke, thought and behaved like a twelve year old girl would (instead of, say, talking like an old man in those Flavia de Luce books).

Certain readers who prefer a more dynamically constructed heroine, or something more plot-driven, might be disappointed at the lowkeyness of this novel. Even as a character-driven story, the protagonist Calpurnia evolves gradually. She is obviously in conflict with pleasing her mother and wishing to fulfill her dreams of becoming a naturalist, and you know that her progress will be a difficult one. I also appreciated the subtle and somewhat ambiguous ending. You’re left unsure as to whether Calpurnia will ever realize her dream of becoming a naturalist, or even be permitted to attend university. Events happen, but they unfold in a normal, everyday kind of way.

Wikipedia provides a very appropriate summary of the ending and theme:

Callie fears that her free-roaming days may be at an end, though, when she receives a frightening Christmas gift: a book from her mother entitled "The Science of Housewifery". 

Throughout the novel, Callie must learn to balance her own independent and curious personality with the restrictions placed on a girl at the turn of the 19th to 20th century. As new inventions are presented in Callie's life, she adjusts and evolves, first with the wind machine her brother brings home, then with a marvelous new beverage called Coca Cola. 

Ultimately, though, it is the introduction of the telephone in the small Texas town that symbolizes the changes ahead for Callie. As Granddaddy tells her, "The old century is dying, even as we watch. Remember this day.” As the book ends, the 20th century dawns, leaving the reader hopeful that it will bring with it new opportunities for the feisty young Calpurnia. 

A very thoughtful and engaging story overall.  This is the kind of book I would like to hold onto for my currently incubating daughter when she grows old enough to read!