While there exists, in most of us, an appreciation for the rhythms and the purity of small-town life, these modest communities are defined by a darkly potent catch 22 that makes actually living there problematic. For the great virtue of small town life is its hospitable culture, a set of values that make neighbors of strangers, that make family of the forlorned, which speaks to a generosity of spirit rarely found elsewhere. However, this ethos, spawned from homogeneity, from shared values and shared customs, creates both a distrust of, and a distaste for, other, those individuals who, through gender or genetics, race or religion, present as different. These outsiders are shunned by these same, generous people, not because the shunners are evil, narrow-minded, or cruel, but because they live in sameness, in normalcy, in a world that is never challenged by chaos or elseness. Their kindness is purchased at the expense of multicultural inclusiveness. And this Ms. Myracle wonderfully demonstrates in her vivid, young-adult novel.
Darkness has come to the small town of Black Creek, North Carolina. For, as much as its country residents may wish to think otherwise, one of their number has committed a crime so violent, a sin so vile, that they can barely bring themselves to believe it's actually happened. Someone they go to church with, someone they have gone to the movies with, someone they've said hi to in the street, someone whose held a shop-door for them, used a baseball bat to beat unto death a sixteen-year-old boy before tying him to the town pump and pouring gasoline down his throat. There is only one thing about Patrick, the victim, that could have inspired such hate, only one characteristic that could have unearthed such rage. Patrick is gay. Not quietly gay, not passing gay. Resplendently gay. And for this he lies in a hospital, fighting for his life.
Tormented by this crime, Cat, herself sixteen and Patrick's dear friend, refuses to accept the sheriff's assertion that the perpetrator must have been a drifter, an evil sort who came and went, stopping only long enough to leave his mark. No, she knows better, that some people in Black Creek aren't talking, that people who once met her eyes will no longer look at her, that secrets are being kept about that fateful night. Unwilling to allow Patrick to go unavenged, she embarks upon an investigation to unearth Patrick's would-be murderer, little knowing the price that must be paid for the exposing of a town's deepest secret.
Though characterized by a simplicity of prose endemic to mainstream youth fiction, Shine is exquisite work. Ms. Myracle, herself a child of small-town life, captures, to a chilling degree, the blessings and the curses of homogeneity, the excruciating awkwardness of adolescence, and the subtle devastation done to the outsider by the society that refuses to love him. For while toleration has become commonplace, while it has become standard practice, toleration is not acceptance. It is not willing. It is reluctant, a begrudging sentiment born of culturally imposed political correctness. This narrow mindedness not only does damage to the individual who does not belong, it discredits the community that shuns him, making a lie of all the values they stand for.
Shine is no glorious mystery. It is not a tale to withstand centuries. But what it lacks in epicness it amply makes up for with pluck and grit. Cat, its heroine, is a fantastically tough hillgirl, a creature formed of indomitable spirit who, nonetheless, manages to be achingly vulnerable and enduringly flawed. Moreover, she has been embedded in a world that is brought into vivid reality by Ms. Myracle's hand. We can feel the heat, see the beauty, taste the dirt of these ancient hills. We can smell the life here, that strain of human stubbornness that refuses to change for anyone. And in this, the author has demonstrated a rare gift, the painting of a portrait in words that can be long-remembered by the mind's eye.
For anyone interested in cultural critiques, gender politics, or even coming-of-age stories, Shine will not steer you wrong. As pleasing as these hills are enduring... (4/5 Stars)
No comments:
Post a Comment