We here at Malcontent are nothing if not slavish devotees of our advertisers. After receiving a blog ad for Brent Hartinger's gay teen novel, The Order of the Poison Oak, I approached Mal with the idea of a book review. We contacted the author, and he very graciously offered to send not only TOotPO, but also the preceding novel in the series, Geography Club
Literally a day later, controversy hit over Hartinger's previous novel. Parents of a Tacoma, Washington school district claimed to be distressed over an internet meeting depicted in GC and sought to ban the book. As Hartinger's interview today with Queerty makes clear, the complaints primarily targeted the homosexual content, and rattled school officials used the internet meet-up as a transparent excuse to justify the banning.
Well, now I had to read both novels and review them to see what all the parental apoplexy was about. Not a natural reader of the gay genre, much less teen literature or your average coming out saga, I was originally worried about writing these reviews. There are only so many ways the material can be presented before a certain repetitiveness sets in.
With that in mind, I cannot believe how immensely I enjoyed these books. I intended to read them on and off over the long weekend, but found myself devouring Geography Club
Full reviews after the jump.
Geography Club
Meet Russel Middlebrook, a sophomore at Goodkind High School and a young, closeted gay man. Along with his braniac friends, Min and Gunnar, Russ is a typical sixteen year old student, middling on the social totem pole ("The Land of High School Respectability"), neither popular nor outcast. Seeing the daily, merciless torment heaped upon social exiles like Brian Bund, Russ is desperate to keep the secret of both his sexuality and his buried crush on the school's star baseball jock, Kevin Land.
During a chance encounter in an internet chatroom, Russel discovers he is not the only gay student at Goodkind. After arranging an offline meeting with his fellow student, Russel finds much to his surprise (but not ours) that the other closeted homosexual is . . . Kevin Land.
Soon, as all high school students must, Russ finds this piece of gossip too juicy not to share with his best friend, Min. His fear of coming out is deflated when she reveals her own bisexuality and the existence of a secret three-year relationship with a girl from the soccer team, Therese.
When the four students gather, including a fifth in Therese's friend, Ike, they rapidly find the rigid boundaries of high school social cliques difficult to traverse. How can they explain being seen together? It is then Russel hits upon the idea for a school club, "so boring, no high school student in his right mind would join."
Thus comes into being the Geography Club - part social gathering, part group therapy. Together the students assuage their loneliness with newfound companionship, while suffering under the strains of social status and the almost hysterical paranoia that comes with the slightest possibility of being outed. Can Russel survive the ups and downs of love and friendship, fake it convincingly when thrust into dating a girl, and keep his relationship with Kevin Land intact under the pressures of outing and sudden popularity?
The key to Geography Club and its successor is the tone Hartinger brings to the narrative. In the first-person narrator, Russel, we're treated to a smart-ass, world-weary, eye-rolling, slightly cynical character. In other words - we're dealing with your basic teenager. In Russel, however, Hartinger avoids the edge of underlying bitterness that is characteristic in many stories about closeted homosexuals. The main character is genuinely funny, self-deprecating without the burden of low self-esteem, innocent without being excruciatingly naive, and - so refreshingly - utterly self-aware.
A serious, angst-ridden tone would have been fatal to the story. Instead, Russel skips over the narrative, doubles back, throws out asides, gives advice to the reader, and lets us know he knows what we're thinking. Reading this novel is very much like having a conversation with a favorite gay friend as he tells you about his day.
If the storyline and plot are fairly stereotypical and predictable (I saw most things coming chapters in advance), perhaps that's because high school is stereotypical and predictable in and of itself. Reading through, I found myself counting off the various events of my own high school experiences, especially when Russel finds himself barrelling through a relationship with a girl, seeking desperately to escape before things go too far. There is a universiality in the closeted high school experience, and Hartinger is careful to include all the joys and disappointments of first relationships, learning to really, profoundly trust your friends for the first time, and the emotional clumsiness we're all afflicted with at that age.
As for the controversy, there is none. The physical aspects of relationships are described sparingly, happen mostly off page, and are never any more graphic than your basic Judy Blume. It is clear in the narrative that the dreaded internet meeting occurs only after Russel and Kevin exchange very detailed information about their school, eliminating any possibility of an internet predator.
Given this, I think Geography Club would be a valuable gift to any young gay student, closeted or not, and really any adult. We truly have all been there, and rarely are stories of this nature written so well, with so convincing and entertaining a teenaged voice. I must admit, Russel (and by extension, Hartinger) is so damn likeable relating his tale that I found myself with a bit of a crush by the end of book.
The Order of the Poison Oak
Summer has finally arrived, and Russel Middlebrook is only too happy to get away from Goodkind High School. Tired of being known only as The Gay Kid, he leaps upon the opportunity to spend ten glorious weeks as a camp counselor, far removed from the knowing glances, cruel remarks, and cold isolation devised by his fellow classmates. Along with his best friends, Min and Gunnar, Russel sets out for Camp Serenity, where the children may be a handful, but at least no one knows he's gay.
During orientation, Russel meets his fellow counselors, including the gorgeous Web Bastion and the lonely Otto Digmore, a young man disfigured by the burn scar upon his face. Soon enough, he finds his first two week session will involve supervising a pack of ten-year-old burn victims, and Russel quickly realizes that his summer will be far more complicated than he originally intended.
At first awkward around the children and hesitant to discipline them out of pity, Russel rapidly loses control and is soon commiserating with his fellow counselors. Nothing changes his perspective quite as much as ten-year-old boys behaving exactly like ten-year-old boys. Humanized by their wild behavior, Russel begins to see them as people like himself, discriminated against, perceived as different, and ostracized by those who are "normal."
Hoping to earn their trust, Russel takes them on a journey into the woods, telling them of an old Native American legend about Rainbow Crow, burnt black by a flaming brand in an act of self-sacrifice. Guiding the children, he initiates them into the Order of the Poison Oak, a secret society for people and creatures who seem ugly to the outside world, but have magical beauty within.
When not occupied with the children, Russel is intent on summer romance - namely with that hunk, Web Bastion. When it becomes clear Web has been skinny-dipping with both Russel and Min, their friendship is tested as jealousy, resentment, and suspicion build under feelings of betrayal.
As with Geography Club, the Order of the Poison Oak is carried by Russel's narrative voice. Here, he is more charming than ever, with a stronger sense of self and a moral clarity forged in the crucible of his high school experiences. Whereas in the first novel Russel necessarily focuses on his own feelings, here he matures and directs his attention outwards, caring about those around him in a way that leaves his own desires almost secondary to the story. Web may be a hunk and the sex may be great, but Russel is never less than preoccupied by concern for Min's feelings. He even makes a little project for himself in finding Gunnar a long sought after girlfriend.
His real test is in how he treats the children, how he comes to see them, and how he sees himself reflected in who they are. When he fails them at a crucial moment, he is crushed and disappointed in himself. He is too self-aware not to know the implications of his behavior, and he immediately sets out to redeem himself and do right by them. Yes, the burn victims are perhaps an incredibly heavy-handed metaphor for how society often treats homosexuals, but Russel's choices and actions are genuinely moving, and we don't mind.
In the romance department, this is a steamier book than its predecessor, with more descriptive scenes and less reliance on assumption and innuendo. It is also a more conscientious one, exploring the dangers of promiscuity and the perils of unsafe sex. Russel also begins to understand the crucial differences between shallow physical attraction, and the deeper, more satisfying relationships that await when he stops thinking with his hormones and considers other people more carefully.
Like Geography Club, I found the plot developments to be fairly predictable. When a forest fire smolders just across the lake at one point in the novel, what are the chances our protagonists will be racing through an inferno before the end? Highly likely. So it is in romance. Does that one character really like Russel? Of course he does. Will Russel realize this and end up with him? Naturally.
Hartinger does not rely on the plot, but on characterization, as all good writers do. Russel and his friends are brilliantly realized, each with their own voice and tone. Russel is funnier than ever with his frequent narrative asides and screeds against the horrifically bratty children. Yet when heartbreak and loneliness come, as they must, how he expresses these emotions is truly touching.
While Geography Club's message was gay youth are not alone, the Order of the Poison Oak is a lesson on inner beauty and self-acceptance. Rather than trite and obligatory, Hartinger uses the first-person narrator to full advantage in handling the material. He really has created a solid piece of literature for gay teens struggling through their adolescence.
I was disappointed when I finished the second novel. The narrative voice is so good, so entertaining, so compelling, that Russel is the kind of gay friend you'd want to listen to talk and talk and talk. Frankly, I wanted more.
I plan on reading both novels again, and then I'm going to donate them either to the public library or my old high school. These are exactly the kind of novels gay teenagers should have access to, and it is obvious why the homophobic among us are so ardent in getting them banned. After all, imagine how dangerous for them it is to have teen literature that tells homosexual adolescents, "Hey kiddo, you're normal."
I just looked on my public library's site, and score! In the heart of conservative Georgia, the library has those books.
*rejoices*
...and this library is a mile from where they had the Georgia Equality billboard torn down...
Posted by: Marya | November 28, 2005 at 10:45 PM