“Three brothers tear their way through childhood -smashing tomatoes all over each other,
building kites from trash, hiding out when their parents do battle, tiptoeing
around the house as their mother sleeps off her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma
are from Brooklyn -he’s Puerto Rican, she’s white- and their love is a serious,
dangerous thing that makes and unmakes a family many times. Life in this family
is fierce and absorbing, full of chaos and heartbreak and the euphoria of
belonging completely to one another.”
Justin Torres autobiographical novel is often brutal,
sad, and a kick in the balls for its no-holds bar look at a family in who can
be lovable, but seem unable to break the cycle of despair. It’s also coming of
story about three very close brothers who know that while life is bleak, as
long as they have each other, things seem to work out. That even as their
parents argue and Paps vanishes for long stretches of time, they’re animals
that somehow survive. The book almost comes off as a fever dream, with each
chapter a sort of self-contained short story, a snapshot of their lives as the
slowly age. Torres prose is searing and leaps off the page.
However, this short novel (125 pages) does have a flawed
moment, which comes near the end. While Jonah’s two brothers and father seem to
hint that the youngest sibling is “different” it’s never alluded to by the boy,
who is recounting the story (and who is Torres). But Jonah’s sexual awakening
seems a bit convoluted and even out of place in the narrative –as does the part
where he mentions he’s been keeping a journal (like when did this happen?).
My understanding is that while the novel takes place over
a few years, the movie version out now takes place over a smaller time period (and
where Jonah is 10, while in the book he is eight), so I’m curious how the films
narrative will incorporate Jonah’s sexuality.
A good first novel, if not a bit isolating.
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