this was a hard one to read...in some ways it's supposed to be a defense of why people become homosexual...because this kid's dad is having him 'do stuff'...or did...also his reason for booking out of the family unit into some real scrappy housing with a series of human castoffs like himself. I really wanted to poke around in the kid's head and extract the peripheral knowledge venues he was operating on, suspicious of everyone and everything because that's the cards life dealt him.
Strangely author Banks (Russell) creates a very different sort of hero for this young man, a Jamaican Rastafarian named I man..who interestingly enough turns up in the same garbage can of a home where the boy has been staying when not elsewhere generating a pile of litter. The boy has his 15th birthday in Jamaica through a series of events that take him from upstate New York to Montego Bay. The vision quest his new Rastafarian associates provide him gives a glimpse into the ego the boy may achieve from his molestation experiences. He's probably being assigned to a gay lifestyle but does talk about hot girls in the street about his age so maybe he's going to be arriving at adulthood not too confused by the lack of love in his young life.
Banks' portrayal of this kid's street life in Au Sable, New York is very much a 1980's sort of portrait. You can see the big hair and the bleached denim along with the significant exploitation of drug-induced states in characters such as the bikers the kid first lives with. How does a child survive around such people? From the parent to the roommate to the real dad, this boy gets nothing but grief and fear from being in the same room with any of these folks. The only adult to actually interact with him is I man and it is only natural the boy would adopt the beliefs of the Rastafari in return for some sort of hope his birth wasn't a mistake.
I find it difficult to think the boy's mother is so detached from her son. I do know, however, that in a case of molestation, the other parent is always unaware that something is happening to his or her child. Her boy attempts to make a case for himself about his dad but the confusion of his emotions towards his mother, some underlying resentment that she somehow made this happen, override the effort. The family unit is fractured beyond repair.
I hadn't read any of banks books but I wanted to know his style and so I have had my opportunity.. it's a good read, not dated at all by it's references to the late 80's, rather an interesting exploration of one young person's experiences on the road to adulthood. it's kind of a chick book really, makes me want to give the kid a hug and bake him some cookies, give him a new kitten..
Strangely author Banks (Russell) creates a very different sort of hero for this young man, a Jamaican Rastafarian named I man..who interestingly enough turns up in the same garbage can of a home where the boy has been staying when not elsewhere generating a pile of litter. The boy has his 15th birthday in Jamaica through a series of events that take him from upstate New York to Montego Bay. The vision quest his new Rastafarian associates provide him gives a glimpse into the ego the boy may achieve from his molestation experiences. He's probably being assigned to a gay lifestyle but does talk about hot girls in the street about his age so maybe he's going to be arriving at adulthood not too confused by the lack of love in his young life.
Banks' portrayal of this kid's street life in Au Sable, New York is very much a 1980's sort of portrait. You can see the big hair and the bleached denim along with the significant exploitation of drug-induced states in characters such as the bikers the kid first lives with. How does a child survive around such people? From the parent to the roommate to the real dad, this boy gets nothing but grief and fear from being in the same room with any of these folks. The only adult to actually interact with him is I man and it is only natural the boy would adopt the beliefs of the Rastafari in return for some sort of hope his birth wasn't a mistake.
I find it difficult to think the boy's mother is so detached from her son. I do know, however, that in a case of molestation, the other parent is always unaware that something is happening to his or her child. Her boy attempts to make a case for himself about his dad but the confusion of his emotions towards his mother, some underlying resentment that she somehow made this happen, override the effort. The family unit is fractured beyond repair.
I hadn't read any of banks books but I wanted to know his style and so I have had my opportunity.. it's a good read, not dated at all by it's references to the late 80's, rather an interesting exploration of one young person's experiences on the road to adulthood. it's kind of a chick book really, makes me want to give the kid a hug and bake him some cookies, give him a new kitten..
