Going into the holiday season I selected a very large stack
of books from our shelves and brought them home for a month long binge
read. There was no rhyme or reason to
the pile, really. Some were novels I’d
had on my “to read” list forever, some were random things I picked up based on
one best of list or another, but, as I read them, a very strange trend began to
emerge…
Somehow –and I swear I didn’t see this coming – I wound up
reading roughly a million coming of age stories, several of which incorporated weird
relationships with stunted, inappropriate adults. I mean, I love
a good teenage bildungsroman, so maybe I should have anticipated this, but
SERIOUSLY GUYS, I HAVE READ SO MANY OF
THESE THIS MONTH. What’s with all the crazy
fictional elders?
Anyhow, I've decided to go with the trend and make a short list of a few of the more recently published of my winter literary
encounters with these tales of self-discovery in questionable climates, of adolescents
who want to desperately to grow up and of adults who can’t seem to master the process.
Espach’s debut novel is an envious achievement; a fresh romp
through the wilds of affluent suburban Connecticut told with the perfectly rendered voice of wry leading girl Emily Vidal. In a
perfect storm of smartly framed melodramas, young Emily catches her father with the
neighbor’s wife, witnesses the neighbor’s subsequent suicide, his wife’s pregnancy, the divorce of her own parents, and then begins a surprisingly lasting affair with a
20-something high school teacher she immaturely calls “Mr. Basketball.” While the turmoil may sound like the workings
of a primetime soap opera, Espach has a talent for teenage dialogue and a way
of capturing, rather beautifully, the constant displaced feelings of adolescence. Everything old is new again, and its this sensibility that carries the
novel through its more expected moments.
Leo Binhammer is the only male faculty
member in a female-dominated New York City school for girls. He relishes the attention he receives from
his peers and the adoration of the girls in his care (no, no, not in that way) until his star is
forced suddenly into decline by the arrival of a new, young teacher who manages what Leo
cannot seem to– he challenges and charms a particularly intellectual ward who
Leo fears. Hummingbirds is a sort of male-centric Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, an academic quirk fest for those still
in love with leather school satchels and the idea of a uniform sweater. When it digs in the gossipy dirt it does so with the
flush of school girl crushes and chatter just as smart as it is frothy.
Blau’s 70’s-set coming of age is an
adult piece of literature disguised as one of the candy-coated confections of your young adult life. Our tale follows
14-year old Jamie as she battles with the pressures of growing up with
exhibitionist hippie parents. A period piece if ever there was one, Jamie’s
sun-soaked revelations on surfer boys, stoner friends, and her own faltering attempts to forge her own path
into adulthood make for a read that’s surprisingly deft in its character
development without surrendering any of the cheap and cheerful entertainment.
While I will admit to not enjoying The Family Fang as much as some of this
blog’s other esteemed contributors, I won’t hesitate to recommend it as an
engaging, fast-paced read that manages to cleverly raise questions about art
and artifice while smartly articulating the damage wrought by parental
deception. The Fangs are a quirky clan
in which the performance artist parents permanently merge their innocent
children’s lives in with their very public art.
Think of it as a literary satire that blends the films of Wes Anderson
with the cartoons of Charles Addams.
Youngish high school teacher with a
cult following and a casual comfort level accidentally stumbles into an affair
with a female student. Yep, heard that
one before. Maksik has been receiving plenty of press for his novel under the
guise that it is our teacher’s relationship with a second student – a young man from an abusive household who develops
his own sort of ‘crush’ – that truly adds a new spin on a recycled plot
device. While the rise and fall of this
particular educator is occasionally interesting to observe, the Parisian
setting is a lush addition, and the political tie-ins often surprising, I’d be
lying if I told you You Deserve Nothing added
anything at all to the nasty old student/teacher cliché. Bland, often quite indulgent, and made all
the more creepy by rumors of the inspiration being drawn from an actual affair
of the author’s own.
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