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Summary
Summary
Michelle LeBeau, the child of a white American father and a Japanese mother, lives with her grandparents in Deerfield, Wisconsin - a small town that had been entirely white before her arrival. Rejected and bullied, Michelle spends her time reading, avoiding fights and roaming the countryside with her dog, Brett. In the tradition of To Kill a Mockingbird (Arrow, 2010), Revoyr's new novel examines the effects of change on a small, isolated town, the strengths and limits of a community and the sometimes conflicting loyalties of family and justice.
Author Notes
Nina Revoyr is the author of three previous novels, The Necessary Hunger, Southland, and The Age of Dreaming. Southland was a Book Sense 76 pick, won the Lambda Literary Award, and was a Los Angeles Times "Best Book" of 2003. The Age of Dreaming was a finalist for the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Revoyr is currently a visiting professor at Pitzer College and vice president of a large non-profit children's organization. She lives in Los Angeles.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Small towns are perhaps not famous for readily accepting outsiders, a lesson Michelle LeBeau, the protagonist of Revoyr's keen new novel, learns firsthand. Ten-year-old Michelle is the child of a Japanese mother who abandoned her husband and daughter and a father who was too busy chasing dreams to raise his daughter. Upon her arrival in 1973 Deerhorn, Wis., where she is to live with her grandparents, she becomes the first nonwhite in town, and thus a convenient target for taunting and bullying. Luckily, she has as adoring grand-father, Charlie LeBeau, and grandmother to sustain her and provide a firm family foundation. But when a young black couple, the Garretts, move to town-she a nurse, he a teacher-the town's sizable population of bigots make it clear the Garretts aren't welcome, the resentment peaking with a cascade of tragedies that have a big impact on Michelle's life. "The hardest thing about suffering a terrible loss is that you usually survive it," Michelle says, and Revoyr does a remarkable job of conveying Michelle's lost innocence and fear throughout this accomplished story of family and the dangers of complacency in the face of questionable justice. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Revoyr continues her unique and affecting exploration of American racism in a concentrated novel that draws breathtaking contrasts between all that is beautiful in life and the malignancy of hate. Charlie, an alpha blue-collar male and a bigot like his buddies, is horrified when his son marries a Japanese exchange student. Yet when nine-year-old Michelle, his only grandchild, is abandoned by her estranged and feckless parents and left with her grandparents in their small, xenophobic Wisconsin town, Charlie loves her without restraint. As Deerhorn's first and only person of color, Michelle is subjected to constant insults and assaults, so Charlie teaches her to fight and shoot a gun, as well as to appreciate nature and play baseball. He calls her Mike, and she is beyond tomboyish, roaming the countryside with her only friend, her dog. Then the Garretts, an African American couple--she's a nurse; he's a teacher--arrive and ignite the town's worst fears and fury. Revoyr writes rhapsodically of a young girl's enthrallment to the natural world and charts, with rising intensity, her resilient narrator's painful awakening to human failings and senseless violence. In this shattering northern variation on To Kill a Mockingbird, Revoyr drives to the very heart of tragic ignorance, unreason, and savagery.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
Kirkus Review
Revoyr's fourth novel (Southland, 2008, etc.)is a coming-of-age saga in which racism cuts across loyalties between family and friends.It's the early 1970s, and post-Vietnam social turmoil is unabated. Not yet 10, Michelle LeBeau is left with her paternal grandparents in the blue-collar town of Deerhorn, Wis. Michelle's mother, a native of Japan, had abandoned her husband and daughter several years earlier, and Michelle's unstable, restless and disgruntled father thinks he can convince his wife to return, if he can only find her. Michelle feels abandoned when her father slips away without saying goodbye, but she also dotes on her grandfather, Charlie, a man who despised his son's interracial marriage but treasures the child it produced. He affectionately calls her "Mikey" and discovers that she is a willing participant in all things hunting and fishing that his son avoided. Told from the viewpoint of an adult Michelle, the novel rings with insight about the world of adults, even while it simultaneously portrays young Michelle authentically. Readers hurt when she is bullied, harassed and isolated because she is an exotic mixture of races, and readers understand when she discovers a version of her own troubles in the town's outright hatred of two other Deerhorn newcomers, an African-American couple, the Garretts. These charactersthe woman a nurse, the husband a substitute teacherare somewhat one dimensional, but nevertheless sympathetic and believable. Revoyr also does well in portraying the Garretts' primary nemesis, Earl Watson, "war hero and business leader and upstanding citizen." But Watson lives with a dark, brutal secret. The author is to be applauded for her ability to effectively portray Charlie, a thoroughly complex human being undone by grief when hatred and friendship, loyalty and love collide. As the adult Michelle wonders if "there are sins for which there is no redemption," the melancholy resolution concludes the narrative convincingly.Gripping and insightful.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Adjusting to life in a new country is difficult enough for most individuals. For nine-year-old Michelle LeBeau, the child of an American father and a Japanese mother, relocating from her birthplace in Japan to live with her grandparents in the fictional town of Deerhorn, WI, is especially complicated because her grandfather Charlie is a bigot. Michelle deftly narrates her struggles with being taunted at school for her appearance. But she eventually draws Charlie to her; he even teaches her some basic self-defense, and the bond between them grows. Michelle's problems with discrimination disappear when the town shifts its focus to the new African American couple, a nurse and her substitute-teacher husband. What follows is Revoyr's (The Age of Dreaming) hauntingly provocative and disturbing tale of blatant racism in small-town America. With shades of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, this work is replete with racial epithets that may shock and offend some but are aptly suited in the context of the story. VERDICT Dealing with issues of race, relationships, and injustice, this tragic tale makes an excellent choice for book discussion groups as it will force readers to dig deep and look inward.-Shirley N. Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
