Green Grass Grace (Shawn McBride)
This book recommendation has incredible social-networking roots, both physical and virtual. First of all, it’s one of the faves of a co-worker of mine who shares a love of reading. (That’s the physical networking.) Secondly, the subject of the book came up when she mentioned the author of Green Grass Grace requested her friendship on My Space because the book was listed on her home page. (How cool! I wanna be an author’s friend!) With the thoroughly modern way in which the book came to my attention, there was no surprise that the book was thoroughly modern — in its use of cursing and youth-culture slang, in the way it reminisces fondly about the 1980s (a period only recently romanticized as authors of a certain age look backward) and in the way it crossed the young-adult and adult genres so easily, making it great reading for teens as well as older (aka aging, am I really aging already?) bookies like myself.
The title of the novel refers to everything that the narrator, 13-year-old Henry “Hank” Toohey, doesn’t have but wants: the green pastures of the country, grass without lawn ornaments or the clothes of errant spouses who’ve been thrown out strewn about, and Grace, the sharp-tongued, big-hearted girl-next-door he’s in love with. The plot centers on Henry’s quest to bring his brother back from the brink after his fiancee’s death and reunite his parents by declaring his love for Grace in public, reigniting the love within his family’s memory and making things happily ever after once and for all. Yes, it’s a 13-year-old’s logic, but that’s what makes the idea so real, so touching and, of course, so doomed to complications.
Complications include bike riding, television-remote hijacking, seminars on how to take a bra off, haggling with local businessmen (all of whom want you to watch their new cable TV ad; very amusing), sitting on train tracks, neighborhood games of tag, making out behind dumpsters and more. But such juvenile antics are mixed with heavy adult topics like alcohol abuse, unfaithful marriages, death and poverty.
In fact, one of the most vibrant characters is Henry’s neighborhood itself, whose residents and houses are colorful, unique and also incredibly human. Henry’s words can be both humorous and amazingly touching. Take, for instance, his description of the neighborhood church:
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the cavernous St. Ignatius Church in the heart of Holmesburg in sunny Philadelphia. Let’s get ready to worship. The temperature inside is 98 degrees with higher humidity, but it still ain’t as hot as Hell, so pipe down and keep the top buttons buttoned. And shut up. And buck up. Open your hearts and your wallets. Bow down before the three oil paintings behind the altar of St. Julius Erving, St. Robert Clarke, and St. Richard Ashburn. Then light a candle at the statued feet of Jesus and Mary, who slouch and suffer on the altar, their hearts torn from thorns and burning like tire fires set by parishoners one dollar at a time in the name of someone dead.
It’s a quick, fun and interesting read. I’m interested to see, however, how this freshman author can take it to the next level, if he’s done anything recently that learns from this book or builds off his first novel experience. I can’t find anything online, though, so I guess I’ll have to ask my friend to check his My Space page.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Book club selection
Fiction |