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The Hemingway Tradition
It was Shaw who found his dad after "he ate a bullet and blew half his head away."; He found the note, too. So even though Shaw and his mother are leaving Vancouver for a new start in Manitoba, the ghost of his suspense writer father is "squeezed into the front seat"; between them in The Hemingway Tradition (Orca $9.95), part of the Soundings series for teen readers.
Victoria's Kristin Butcher follows Shaw as he attempts to settle into a new school, make friends and cope with the notion that everything in his life has been a lie.
The note proves it. His father was gay. Those happy times were false. The novel they were going to write together, the hours they spent in their small boat, fishing as an excuse to share the morning, the loving husband, the devoted father, all lies.
"[My] father's death wasn't just stealing from my future; it was stealing from my past too."; Then his mother presents Shaw with a heavy leather-bound book. In reading his father's journal, Shaw finds his father's earlier, joyous entries delighting in his son and his life, then slowly giving way to rants over publishers and the state of the planet. He never wrote in the journal what was troubling him privately. Until the last entry.
As Shaw reads of his father's self-loathing, guilt, despair and portents of his final surrender, he's filled with an empowering anger. His father had killed himself because he wasn't considered normal. What was normal? And who got to decide? How stupid was that!
Certainly not the bigots at school who beat up his friend Jai. Shaw fights back with a fiery and compelling article for the school paper. His father had loved him. That was the truth. He finds that out for himself. By thinking independently of society. Was Ernest Hemingway weak for shooting himself? Or was his suicide some kind of heroic gesture in the face of illness? Shaw's Dad was no Ernest Hemingway but Ernest Hemingway was perhaps a little bit like his Dad. Human. Scared. It all depends on how you want to look at things.
Orwell said all a writer needs to write is a kitchen table. Ernest Hemingway could only write standing up and pacing the room. Kristin Butcher, a former teacher, prefers to write in her pajamas. The PJ Lady is now working on a second novel for the Soundings series, The Trouble With Liberty, for 2003. She is also the author of Cairo Kelly and the Mann (Orca $8.95) 1-55143-211-0; Hemingway 1-55143-242-0
Review by Louise Donnelly
[BCBW AUTUMN 2002]
Victoria's Kristin Butcher follows Shaw as he attempts to settle into a new school, make friends and cope with the notion that everything in his life has been a lie.
The note proves it. His father was gay. Those happy times were false. The novel they were going to write together, the hours they spent in their small boat, fishing as an excuse to share the morning, the loving husband, the devoted father, all lies.
"[My] father's death wasn't just stealing from my future; it was stealing from my past too."; Then his mother presents Shaw with a heavy leather-bound book. In reading his father's journal, Shaw finds his father's earlier, joyous entries delighting in his son and his life, then slowly giving way to rants over publishers and the state of the planet. He never wrote in the journal what was troubling him privately. Until the last entry.
As Shaw reads of his father's self-loathing, guilt, despair and portents of his final surrender, he's filled with an empowering anger. His father had killed himself because he wasn't considered normal. What was normal? And who got to decide? How stupid was that!
Certainly not the bigots at school who beat up his friend Jai. Shaw fights back with a fiery and compelling article for the school paper. His father had loved him. That was the truth. He finds that out for himself. By thinking independently of society. Was Ernest Hemingway weak for shooting himself? Or was his suicide some kind of heroic gesture in the face of illness? Shaw's Dad was no Ernest Hemingway but Ernest Hemingway was perhaps a little bit like his Dad. Human. Scared. It all depends on how you want to look at things.
Orwell said all a writer needs to write is a kitchen table. Ernest Hemingway could only write standing up and pacing the room. Kristin Butcher, a former teacher, prefers to write in her pajamas. The PJ Lady is now working on a second novel for the Soundings series, The Trouble With Liberty, for 2003. She is also the author of Cairo Kelly and the Mann (Orca $8.95) 1-55143-211-0; Hemingway 1-55143-242-0
Review by Louise Donnelly
[BCBW AUTUMN 2002]
Submitted on May 15, 2003 in By David.
