teenage paperback

A short story by Kin Platt

2011-08-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

Doing a Gang by Kin Platt *

It was not surprising that the subject had come up, perhaps more surprising that it had taken so long to surface. Both boys were about the same age, fifteen, neither particularly blessed with intelligence or creativity. Their parents were successful, they lived in an affluent community of lovely homes, gracious lawns and gardens zealously tended by wiry sunburned Japanese, and the cars parked in the driveways were the most expensive and desirable that money could buy. Neither boy had ever worked a day in his life, or starved, or for that matter gone without a meal. They were not beaten or oppressed, or singled out for unusual punishments. But that is neither here nor there.

Ray Chandler, the stockier of the two, was visiting his friend Mark Berry after school. They were sitting around the swimming pool in the backyard of the Berry family. The Chandlers didn't have a swimming pool, but they were so wealthy they didn't have the need to impress their neighbors.

“You're not kidding, Ray?” Mark Berry was saying. “You really mean this? You want us to do a gang?”

“Yeah, well, sure. Why not?”

Mark stared at his friend. “Why not? Are you for real? I can think of only a million reasons why not. You tell me one good reason why. Okay?”

The Chandler boy got to his feet, waving his arm, very animated. “Well, okay, I'll give you good reason. Like nothing is happening with us, right? It's the same all the time. Every day, every night. Day in, day out. I know what you do and you know what I do, and sometimes we both do the same dumb thing together, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Mark Berry said. “Kind of. Yeah, but still --”

“So I thought, hey – if we do a gang, it would be something different for a change. Right? So you want to know why, that's why. Different. Something different. Don't you feel maybe it's time we did something different, Pete's sake?”

Mark Berry thought about it. He nodded. “Yeah, well, okay, different sounds okay. But like what are you supposed to do, I mean, supposing we do like, you know, the gang?”

Ray Chandler waved his arms, walking back and forth a few paces on the white stone ledge outside the blue-tinted pool. “Oh, heck, you know. Go around in a car. Rumbling. Having a blast. Ride out Venice. Cruise down Sunset. Maybe hit downtown. All those different places. I bet we find a lot of girls down around those places. We have a blast, a lot of fun, right?”

Mark Berry rubbed his face. He knew the gang idea of his friend Raymond was a good, solid idea, and he wished he'd been the one to have thought of it. But although he was not a brilliant boy, neither was he a stupid one. He had read of the gangs in downtown L.A. and outlying sections. The blacks, the Chicanos, the tough white downtown gangs. They were always featured somewhere in the daily papers, their exploits recorded on TV, a shooting here, a stabbing there, a continuing gang warfare that never made sense to outsiders, and an ongoing activity the authorities seemed helpless to deal with.

He also knew that neither Raymond nor himself could stand up to any legitimate gang members. They weren't tough enough, mean enough, and although he knew there were numerous white gangs, some of even fairly well-to-do kids, he sensed these others had a keener purpose, were acting out of more mature reasons, or were perhaps simply more macho than he or Raymond. He certainly couldn't imagine himself cruising down a street, spotting a potential victim he either knew or did not know, and cutting him down with lethal bullets. He wasn't that crazy.

Considering all this in his mind, he shook his head slowly. “Okay, now just hold on a sec, Raymond. The idea is okay, I mean, okay it's not bad. You know? But all I know about gangs is they keep shooting up other guys – other dudes, right? It's on TV and in the papers every day, all the teenage violence, and you know the same I know about it, so we don't have to argue.”

“I never said shooting, Mark, I only said a gang, right?”

“Right, Ray. You didn't say. But here's why it's a real downer for me. The whole deal. You know, with my old man up for indictment on that bribery charge with that guy on the City Council, that's all I need now is to bring more dishonor to his name, his own kid running around, doing a gang, shooting up people.”

The Chandler boy came closer. “Now, hold on, Mark. I never said nothing about shooting people. Okay? All I said was we could have a blast. Rumbling around in the car, your car or mine, or we borrow one. We can do the deal without the shooting. I'm not so hot on that part, either, tell the truth. Besides, where would we get the guns?”

“Oh, that's no problem. My old man's got a couple. For protection, self-defense, you know?”

“Yeah? Like what kind?”

“There' a Smith and Wesson, six-shot, and also he's got this Colt five-shot. Both thirty-eight caliber.”

“No kidding? I wonder if my old man has a couple too, stashed away he never told me about. I'd sure like to see those, Mark. Is that possible, you think?”

“That's no big problem. I know where he keeps them. But getting back to the gang idea, were you thinking just us two, or maybe some other kids we know?”

“Well, yeah, in a way. There's Julie. You know him.”

“Big Julie? That big guy with the funny laugh, you mean?”

“Yeah, him. He's a pretty good fighter, in case we ever need one. I mean, he likes to fight. I don't mind if I really have to, I guess, but Julie, boy, he really gets a charge out of hitting and getting hit.”

“Well, yeah, I see your point on him, but the trouble is, I don't like Julie. I caught him a few times messing around, trying to make out with my kid sister, and Pete's sake, what does she know?”

“Yeah, Leona's kind of young, isn't she?”

“Well, you know, twelve or so. Like that. That's too young, right, for this Julie to be --”

“Yeah, sure, Mark. Okay, so screw him. We can think of another guy.”

“How about Bernie?”

“Bernie Shore?”

“Yeah. He's good size. I don't know if he can fight.”

“Sorry, Mark. Bernie's out, far as I'm concerned. He talks too much. So what if he rats on us and lets the world know we're doing a gang? It's got to be a secret thing, right?”

“Yeah, right. Okay, forget I mentioned him. Who else?”

“Jeez, you know I can't think up anybody else right now.”

“How about Charles Baker? You know, the one on Rodeo?”

“Him? That jerk? He once borrowed twenty bucks from me, and never gave it back. Then he says he remembers he paid me. That creep? No way, Mark. Sorry. Do another one.”

Mark sat blowing his cheeks, lips pursed, thinking, shaking his head, tapping his fingers, as if counting. “Hey, that's wild,” he said. “Here we want to do a gang and we can't even think of anybody else but us.”

“Well, heck, there's no rush. Maybe tomorrow we'll come up with a couple guys we like.”

“Yeah, that's a good idea, Ray. Not to jump right off into it. Good idea. We'll think about it. After all, if we do it, we want to do it right, you agree?”

“Well, sure. Why screw up right at the start?”

Mark nodded. He got up rubbing his hands. “Okay, I think it's great we agree, so far. You still want to see the guns?”

“Sure do, if you think --”

“No sweat. Wait here, Ray. I'll bring them out.”

“Okay, you think you can. You want, I'll come in.”

“No, better wait here. My folks are out but maybe the kid sister's home. I don't want her saying she saw us both in there, just in case.”

Ray Chandler stepped back, waving his hands. “Okay, sure.”

The Berry boy walked away and entered his house through the side terrace door. He went quickly to his father's bedroom. He heard his sister upstairs talking on the phone, her stereo playing loudly. “That you, Mark?” she called.

“Yeah. When did you get home?”

“I've been home for hours. I was here when you and Ray got here. You two guys going swimming?”

“No way. It's too cold.”

He remembered seeing the guns in his father's dresser, the top drawer. He was surprised to see only one, the larger Smith and Wesson. He took it out and went through the other drawers without success. Well, maybe he's got it under his pillow now, he thought. He checked the pillows, and then the small drawer of the night table. He stood there a moment, frowning. With his sister so close, he didn't want to take the chance of her coming down unexpectedly, finding him in their parents' room, going through their dressers.

“Screw it,” he said. “So I'll show him just the one.”

He brought it out to the terrace, holding it carefully. It was heavy, the dull silvery metal gleaming in the sunlight. He handed it to his friend, pressing it on Raymond's hand.

“I thought you said there were two,” Raymond said.

“All I could find was this one, the Smith and Wesson. The other's around someplace but anyway, this will give you the idea what a real gun feels like, right?”

The terrace door opened, and his younger sister came out. “Mark,” she said. “What are you doing with daddy's gun?”

“It's okay, Leona,” Mark said. “Raymond wanted to see it. Just don't tell pop, okay?”

She nodded. “Okay.” Her hand came up. “Were you looking for this one?”

Her brother stared. “Hey, she's got the Colt. Be careful with that thing, Leona. It might be loaded.”

Leona looked down at the dark short-muzzled pistol in her small hand. “You think so?”

The boys watched transfixed as she lifted her arm slowly. She leveled the gun at arms-length out toward them. Her finger was inside the trigger guard. “Hey, watch it, Leona,” the Chandler boy said nervously.

She smiled thinly, and aimed the gun at him. “Kiss the world goodbye, Raymond. You're dead. Pow!”

Her finger tightened and her hand shook. The sound was like thunder on a still day. Raymond staggered back, his arms flung in the air. He coughed, looking at her dumbly. His lips moved and his eyes became suddenly red.

“Hey, Leona, that hurt, you know?” He fell slowly backward.

Mark Berry dropped to his knees, his face white. He looked at the dark crimson hole in the center of Raymond's white shirt. There was a lot of blood, and soon more welled, pulsing brightly.

His voice shook as he shouted at his sister. “You know what? You killed him.” He shook his friend who lay there. “Hey, come on Raymond. You okay? Honest, she didn't mean it.” He looked unbelievingly at the blood on his hand. His voice was a high-pitched scream, as he turned to his sister. “I told you it was loaded, you little, stupid dope. Why don't you listen sometimes? Now look what you did.”

Leona walked across the stone terrace toward him. She was a slight, small girl, looking younger than her years. Her face was tan, her brown eyes bright and sparkling. “I knew it was loaded, you dope. Why do you think I shot him?”

Her brother looked at her, frowning. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said, speaking firmly and quite distinctly, “I always wanted to shoot one of these dumb things. And I especially wanted to shoot Raymond Chandler. You know why?” And as her brother shook his head mutely, his head whirling, unable to utter a word, she continued, “Because he was a real stupid jerk, you know that? I've asked him probably at least a million times to make out with me, and all he did was keep on telling me to go away, to get lost, I was too young.”

Mark Berry stayed on his knees, feeling cold. He put his hand on his friend's forehead, and shivered. “Honest, Ray, she never meant to do that. She wouldn't do a thing like that to you in a million years.” His voice broke and he began sobbing.

The girl came closer, the gun dangling at her side. Her thin brown legs were near his shoulder and he looked up to see the gun in her hand circling toward him.

“Hey, Mark,” she said softly, seductively. “I got a great idea. How about you and me doing a gang?”

___________________________________________________________

Thank you to Christopher Platt for allowing me to post this never-before-published story by Kin Platt. For more news on Kin Platt, please join the discussion on Facebook.

Outsider Girls: An Interview with Shelley Stoehr

2011-07-29T23:27:00.000-07:00

(photos of Stoehr from the 80's, 90's and 00's)

In 1991, Shelley Stoehr, a brilliant woman in her early twenties, had her first novel published by Doubleday. The book, Crosses, gained serious attention for its eye-opening subject matter that dealt with a self-destructive character who cuts herself. This would be the same year that Nirvana released their breakthrough album Nevermind. If I can make a comparison, I'd say that Stoehr's book was to realistic young adult fiction what Nevermind was to rock. It was a reinvention of what came before, a throwback to the 1970's with an edge that spoke to a new generation of disenchanted youth. Both exemplified a new type of punk. In the mainstream it was labeled grunge. Both Cobain, Nirvana's frontman, and Stoehr championed the outsider giving an honest voice to the teen spirit by finding an emotional quality in those previously labeled dirtbags. Stoehr's novels, like Cobain's music, were written with a powerfully intoxicating never-before-seen force that spoke of suicide and bordered on self-destruction. As her character Nancy states, "We considered ourselves seventies punkers, stuck in a conservative eighties world." Her book dealt with a particular type of suburban discontent and boredom felt throughout the country.

(covers from various editions of Crosses)

Crosses seems as much a rebellion against the conservative 1980's as it is steeped in this time period in which Stoehr herself grew up. In retrospect, her four novels written in the 1990's are symbolic of this time when alternative rock and rebellion meant so much to so many. It was a time before the rise of the internet and the changing culture of the following decade where teens would be glued to electronic devices. For me, her novels heralded in an end of an era for realistic young adult novels that faded away with the death of afterschool specials and angry nihilistic anthems. The type of fiction she was writing would soon lose favor towards a culture that leaned in favor of a fantasy driven, big-budget reality tv-based teen world that applauded Harry Potter and Britney Spears. Yet unlike Kurt Cobain, Stoehr did not burn-out. She continues to write and there is no doubt that her future books and stories will find a place amongst a new generation of readers. This has to do largely in part to the fact that Stoehr writes about young women in a way that few others do. She presents characters and gives a voice to girls that are seldom heard about in today's commodified popular culture.

(Stoehr and friends c. 1985)

Stoehr grew up an avid reader and was aware of young adult fiction even as a teenager. Some of her favorites were the popular writers who helped shape the market for YA fiction throughout the 1970's. These included writers such as Judy Blume, S.E. Hinton and Lois Duncan. While the tragedies that befall Stoehr's "outsider girls" are more extreme than in books by these authors, they also share a striking similarity. Each of these women were published authors, with popular books before they were 30. Stoehr's books introduced new subjects to YA fiction, much like Judy Blume did, with a confessional frankness. Her protagonists, while rebellious, are not always loners and the bonds of friendship amongst rebellion are as strong as in Hinton's books. The horror elements of Duncan's work can also be seen with Stoehr as the readers are left in suspense for her characters often caught in a downward spiral almost beyond their control. The pacing of her books, short chapters and under 200 pages in length, keep them within the oeuvre of the Laurel-Leaf library and her predecessors. Still, Stoehr has something new to say. It is the hard edged nature of her books, stemming from reality, that gives a voice to a new generation and makes her the daughter that Blume, Hinton or even Duncan could never have imagined conceiving. I see her work following in this tradition of strong women writers whose work had a resonance to young readers. Stoehr's four novels were to the 90's what these writers were to the 70's.

(some classic YA fiction)

The strength of Stoehr's work, makes it resilient. Crosses continues to be read by young readers, as do her other books. Three of her books were reprinted by IUniverse in 2003 to fulfill this demand. While the past decade was not a prolific time period for the author, she is writing again. Several of her short stories have appeared in anthologies put out by major publishers. She also has two new novels in the works. Additionally, she maintains a blog of short fiction to give voice to her many female characters at www.outsidergirlswrite.blogspot.com.

Stoehr currently resides with her family in Connecticut. She has worked as a bartender, a street performer, been a modern dance choreographer and teacher, performed with a modern dance troupe and worked as a massage therapist. In addition to being the mother of two, she also occasionally writes for an online newspaper. Her creative writing appears regularly on her blog and she is also working on a children's book in addition to a YA novel.

I wrote to Shelley as a long time admirer of her work and she was kind enough to answer some questions for me.
_________________________

In Crosses your character Nancy states "I didn't think of the replacing booze with water trick on my own, I read it in a book about a teenage alcoholic. That was my hobby, reading books about teens in trouble...I filled in the extra hours before bed with stories about drug addicts, anorexics and alcoholics." I was wondering if this reflected your own personal experiences as a teenager. Did you read a lot of teenage dilemma novels? And if so, which ones were important to you?

I loved to read as a teenager, and loved especially problem novels. As a creative youth probably already feeling stirrings of a mental illness to be discovered in adulthood -- I'm bipolar -- I was especially interested in books about people with mental illnesses. As a teenager, I remember really liking and identifying with Lisa, Bright and Dark. I also remember reading Sybil -- I didn't identify with that one, but I remember it because it was the only book my parents ever forbade me to read, because of the horrible sexual abuse Sybil had suffered. Of course, I read it even more eagerly!

(troubled young women in popular books from the 1970's)

Did these books inspire you in your own writing? Was your writing ever a reaction against these sort of books?

All of my books have been American Library Association "Recommended Book(s) for the Reluctant Young Reader", I think because I identified with and was inspired by the problem novels of my youth. I was very much like Nancy in Crosses -- both a cutter, and a disenfranchised, discontent, suburban teen. I drank and used drugs recreationally, but still did really well in school. In the first draft of Crosses, Nancy was to be Valedictorian, which I was in real life. I was strongly encouraged to remove that from the book because it didn't seem "believable" that a teen who smoked, drank and smoked marijuana could also be valedictorian! Anyway, the only books I ever reacted against were saccharine portrayals of teenagers with no problems... BORING! Crosses was called "A Go Ask Alice for the 1990's", and that was one of my favorite reviews, since the original Go Ask Alice had been one of my favorite novels as a teenager. Still, what I wanted to write was about teenagers who were multi-faceted, or unexpected, such as a drinker/cutter/smoker who was also super smart (Crosses), or a rich, talented kid who becomes a runaway/stripper (Weird on the Outside).

(Stoehr as 1987 valedictorian of Babylon High)

My interest in YA novels came about after I was a teenager. Like most teenagers, the books I read in High School were more "adult" titles. Who were some of the non YA authors that had an impact on you? Is there one book you can name that has a special significance to you?

I loved Stephen King most. Although I've never dabbled in writing horror, I did then, and still do, escape with horror and thrillers. As I mentioned earlier, I remember Sybil significantly because my parents forbade me to read it. I remember when I was in 6th grade, the school librarian punished me for reading "trash" when she caught me reading a book I only remember was called "Hell House." I told her that if she knew it was trash then she must have read it herself!

(2 popular "forbidden books" from Stoehr's youth)

Do you think your knowledge of YA books compelled you to write about different topics that had not been written before? Did this make you want to write more about what some would consider to be "extreme situations". Or did the subject matter of your books just seem natural and honest to you?

This may come off as sounding freaky, but Michael Crichton wrote in his memoir, Travels, that for him, writing was "channeling" characters, and I identified with that. When I write, it feels more like I'm tapping in to a character than creating one. My books are character-driven, so often when I sit down to write, it feels like I'm just writing down someone's story... on a good writing day, when I open myself up and don't try to "do" the writing myself. On a bad day, I try too hard to create, and the writing comes out fake. One of my problems lately has been trying too hard -- I think I've been reading too many books about writing. When I was younger, I never second-guessed myself, or the words that flowed out of me.

I do look for characters that can survive extreme situations. Then I let the characters tell their own story. For example, I'm writing a book now tentatively titled, RealThin. At first, it was called Let Her Cry, and was about a girl struggling to deal with her bipolar mother. What came out was a girl who also has an eating disorder, and not only that, she throws up on camera, videos she uploads to YouTube as her screen personality, RealThin. I had no idea when I started this novel that that was where the character would take me.

In Crosses 15 year old Nancy cuts, has sex, hitchhikes, drinks, does drugs, shoplifts, nearly gets raped and ends up in a psychiatric hospital. The series of events seem more intense than in the novels that follow. I remember that as a teenager, extreme situations appealed more to me than they do as an adult. Do you think this intensity comes from having written the novel at a young age? Also, do you still believe that presenting these situations in books for teenagers still has relevance?

I know it still has relevance because my fourteen year old nieces just read Crosses and told me it was "the best book everrrrr." I do believe teenagers have a passion for the extreme, for testing to the limits, and books that represent that truth of teenaged life affect today's teenagers as much as the teenagers of my youth. I have received more criticism by teenagers today for Crosses than when it first came out, but most of that criticism comes from Crosses being 20 years old. One teen critic wrote that Crosses was written at a time when teenagers were "just starting to use marijuana" -- LOL!

When did you begin writing Crosses? Were you studying writing while in college?

Crosses was first a short story I wrote for a writing class. I then wrote the novel and gave it to my writing teacher, Blanche Boyd, who told me it was terrible! I believe she said, "This is not writing." (!!!) I was so mad that I rewrote Crosses that summer, and when I gave it to Ms. Boyd again, she was impressed that I made something out of nothing... then, I submitted Crosses to Delacorte Press's First Young Adult Novel contest. The contest judge told me that she liked the book, but it "had no ending," so I wrote an ending. I still remember the judge saying she was "not sanguine" about a rewrite, but she agreed to read it again. Although I didn't win the contest, Delacorte decided to publish my book! I was a junior at Connecticut College.

What aspects of Crosses came directly from your own personal experiences? (of course you don't have to answer this if it's too personal) Do you think it was beneficial to be writing about a teenager when you were not far from your teen years?

I was a secret cutter as a teenager, and even into adulthood. Eventually, I entered a twelve-step program, and I haven't cut for several years now. Crosses is the book that is most like my actual life as a teenager. I think more young people should write YA books, but of course, when you're in college studying writing, you always want to write adult books. Problem is, you really don't have the life experience.

I was also curious if you set out to write a YA novel or was this a marketing decision when you (or your agent or publisher) were trying to sell the book. Do you always consider writing for a certain market or do you find that a block to creativity? Or in other words, when you write, do you think about a teen audience? Or are you writing for yourself and others with similar interests? Does this even matter?

I didn't set out to write a YA novel, but once I did, YA was all I wanted to write. At the time Crosses was published, YA was the field where you could be most adventurous as a writer. You could write about anything because YA wasn't expected to make big bucks back then. YA authors weren't dependent on the "bottom line" as adult authors were. That's all changed now, and I believe it has hurt the YA industry. There are less risks taken with subject matter. I still love to write for a teen audience -- my "voice" as they call it is distinctly teenager. I guess I'm very in touch with my inner teenager. Certainly I'm as emotional as one. In fact, I consider myself an "Emo" writer.

I am curious how your work first got published?

I entered Crosses in Delacorte Press's First Young Adult Novel contest. I didn't win, but Delacorte wanted to publish me anyway. The publisher at the time was the same who'd first published S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, which, btw, was the very first novel to be called "Young Adult".

What was your reaction to the popularity of Crosses as a young author?

I felt like a rock star! My editor would take me out to fancy lunches in NYC, I got to speak at the NCBTA conference and librarians from all over couldn't wait to talk to me. I felt like I'd found my niche in the world.

Did you have to deal with any of the criticism or controversy directly that a book like Crosses might bring about?

I remember The Bulletin for the Center of Children's Books hated Crosses, but most everyone else loved it. Crosses was the first ever novel about cutting. I even got favorable reviews from The Village Voice and Sassy magazine.

Did having a popular, published book change your lifestyle at all? Did it provide you with inspiration to continue writing for this age group?

What changed my lifestyle was my urge, almost compulsion to write -- a need I still have to this day. I started writing seriously (nearly every day for at least an hour a day) when I was a teenager, so writing was all I ever thought I'd do, though I did finish college as a dance major... I though writing would support me so I could dance. Turned out that back then, writing YA was not very profitable, though it was intensely rewarding. I've gotten letters from young people who say my book changed, or even saved, their life... doesn't get any more rewarding than that!

Crosses takes place on Long Island in Babylon during the 1980's. I am assuming you also grew up in Babylon during this time period. I grew up on Long Island in the 1990's and recognized some of the locations in the book such as the Sunrise Mall and also some of the musical references like the bands Lisa Lisa and Squeeze that are particular to this time period. I was curious about some of the less direct references to your youth in this setting. What were some things from popular culture that had an effect on you growing up?

I was into alternative music like the Smiths and the Violent Femmes. I loathed the more popular music or what I considered fake alternative, like Depeche Mode. Hanging out at the mall was a huge part of my teenaged years. Everyone was less safety crazy, and it was cool to hang out across the street from school at the designated "smoking island" to smoke. We could leave school during lunch in high school, and getting pizza locally was big. The beach in summer... Robert Moses beach had a bus that departed every hour. The town pool. Hiding out under the bleachers in gym class.

One of my favorite lines from Crosses is when Katie asks, "What's life without risks?" and Nancy replies "The Suburbs". How was your Long Island of the 1980's different or similar to, say, Degrassi or a John Hughes movie?

Probably closer to Degrassi that John Hughes. When I was a teen, I hated John Hughes, felt it was a cop-out, unrealistic representation of real teenaged life. Everyone had great clothes and the story always tied up neatly. As an outsider girl, I couldn't stand Molly Ringwald, although I did appreciate Ally Sheedy.

Funny thing is, now I have a Breakfast Club tee shirt. I have all the John Hughes movies on DVD, and I've tried to get my daughter to watch them because as bad as I thought they were at the time, I think they're better than any teenaged movies made today. I mean, Lemonade Mouth is so fake, I want to blow chunks. It makes me think there may not be a place for my style of story today.

My fave movie, btw, although it's for younger kids (though I love it as an adult), is Harriet the Spy.

(a selection of books by Shelley Stoeher)

What was the impetus for Weird On The Outside? Did you begin working on this book before Crosses was published?

I was just out of college and trying to make it in NYC. So both Weird on the Outside and Wannabe were inspired by that experience. NYC is tough to make work! Even when I was in my early 20's, it was very expensive. I bartended at a strip club. I learned that stripping was not as it was in movies or books. I met amazing women who were strippers to put themselves through school, support themselves as artists and writers... I wanted to give these fantastic women a voice. More so than with Crosses, Weird on the Outside was a hard sell. No one wanted to believe strippers were not sleazy or else really into sex and money.

Weird On the Outside is a book that works on many levels. On one hand it’s the story of Tracey’s coming-of-age and of becoming an independent woman. On the other hand, it’s a story of taking dangerous risks in order to achieve this goal. Do you see these things as going hand in hand? Is danger and risk an important part of self discovery?

I never thought it out before, but now that you mention it, I guess that I do believe that. Not that it makes it right. Dangerous risks are mostly just dangerous. However, taking risks is a catalyst for growth, and so far as danger goes, well, it can also be a catalyst, provided one learns from it. In my own life, I took way too many dangerous risks: cutting myself too deeply, hitchhiking… later, as an adult, drinking too much and not always knowing how I got home (yikes!). But I’ve come out alive, and with some wisdom that comes from experience.

Your female characters are often very intelligent but do not choose to set out on the paths their parents imagine for them. Would you categorize this as youthful rebellion or something deeper?

Definitely rebellion, although for me, it wasn’t constrained to my youth. I think it’s normal and healthy for young people to rebel. But eventually, one has to grow up some and start doing things for the positive effects it will have on one’s self, rather than simply to negate someone else’s expectations.

Do you imagine that your characters continue to challenge themselves in these ways throughout their lives?

I believe that my characters are strong women in the making, despite some poor choices made in their youth. So yes, I think they will continue to challenge themselves, and learn about themselves. I recently wrote a novel called Somebody’s Daughter, (a short story version of this as yet unpublished novel has been published in the YA anthology, Truth and Dare)… anyway, in Somebody’s Daughter, the main character’s mother is Nancy Keenan – from Crosses, all grown up. Nancy is a writer and a single mother, successful but struggling at the same time. Reminds me of me!

The title Weird On the Outside seems to describe more than one of your books. Usually your characters express discontent through placing themselves in situations that may prove harmful and have to do with drugs and sexuality. I relate to your characters because they hold nothing back and are honest in expressing themselves. Do you personally believe it is better to be weird on the outside than to be weird on the inside? In Weird On The Outside Tracey never has any serious regrets about stripping which is atypical of the sort of epiphany usually seen in a YA novel. Instead, she learns not to feel shame. I was curious how you relate the physical to mental health. Do you feel that movement such as dancing or exercise is essential to self expression? Can physical awareness and comfort in your body help to combat psychological difficulties?

Wow! Well said! I forgot how in Weird, the important thing is learning not to feel shame, not only with one’s body, but with one’s mental state as well. Tracey was ashamed of being really smart, but she isn’t any more by the end. She’s met people from many different walks of life, and discovered that deep down, we are the same, whether we’re weird or “normal” on the outside.

Did your other work as a massage therapist, dancer or choreographer help to contribute to some of the ideas expressed in Weird On The Outside? And if so, have these things also contributed to the creation of subsequent works?

Well, I was a dancer and choreographer when I was writing Weird, and I definitely learned a lot about becoming comfortable with my body, which comes through in Weird. Also, I worked with strippers, both as a bartender in a club and I even choreographed a piece for the opening of a club, and a piece on Howard Stern’s TV show… so I learned first hand that people are people, and also that women are powerful.

Do you ever think about what happens to your characters after the books end? For the most part, do you see your characters as survivors and being able to make-it in the adult world.

Yes, they are definitely survivors. As I said in an earlier answer, Nancy from Crosses grows up and becomes a mom and a writer. I am pretty sure the other characters, much like my readers, have grown up to be successful humans – meaning, maybe not rich or famous, but good, strong people.

Personally, your book Tomorrow Wendy seems very accurately placed in the time the book was written/published (1998). I was 19 when this book was published and not far from your characters in age. The book seems very “90’s” to me in the descriptions of both the fashion and the music specific to this decade. It also seems like this was a sort of transitional time or the end of an era. For example, computers and cell phones are not even mentioned. Do you think it became more difficult for “angsty” books like yours to be published in the YA genre in the following decade?

They’re still being published, it’s just the issues change a little, and the means of expression change. I’m still not good with a lot of texting lingo, but I do have a character in a book I’m writing now who is bulimic, and dons a disguise and throws up on YouTube.

How do you think publishing has changed?

Mainly, there used to be a lot of little publishing companies, and now there are multi-media conglomerates. In YA, you used to be able to take bigger risks and also be more artsy, and more fringe. Now the “bottom line” is stressed more. It pisses me off, but eventually these giant conglomerates are going to fold in on themselves like a black hole, and then the small publishers with vision will rise again. IMHO!

Will realistic, gritty or “emo” books make a comeback in the electronic age?

I definitely believe so. Or at least, I believe there will always be a place for “emo” books, because there will always be an emo movement, even if it’s called something else. On my blog, I call my readers “outsider girls” – they’re not in the mainstream, they’re not the popular girls, but they have something to say.

Will you write about new challenges faced by teens that relate to technology in your new work? Or would you be more comfortable setting your stories in the 80’s or 90’s so that you can draw from your own youthful experiences?

That’s a really good question, and I don’t know. I’m not a dinosaur when it comes to technology, but I don’t have an iPhone either. So far, I’m trying to write about kids who use technology, but its not the main issue for them. But who knows what I’ll be inspired to write next?

Well, I certainly look forward to reading your next projects!
Thank you for taking the time to do this interview.

More info. on Shelley Stoehr can be found online at www.shelleystoehr.com
Photos of the author are courtesy of Shelley Stoehr.

(Shelley Stoehr - December 1982)

NOVELS:

Crosses (Bantam Doubleday Dell/Delacorte Press: 1991, Laurel Leaf: 1993, 1998, iUniverse: 2003) *an ALA Best Book for Young Adults *an ALA Quick Pick *an ALA Recommended Book for Reluctant Young Readers

Tomorrow Wendy (BDD/Delacorte Press: 1998, iUniverse: 2003) *an ALA Quick Pick *an ALA Recommended Book for Reluctant Young Readers *A New York Library Best Books for the Teenaged 1998

Wannabe (BDD/Delacorte Press: 1997)

Weird on the Outside (BDD/Delacorte Press: 1995, Laurel Leaf: 1996, iUniverse: 2003) *an ALA Recommended Book for Reluctant Young Readers

SHORT STORIES:

Somebody’s Daughter (Truth or Dare, edited by Liz Miles, Running Press: May, 2011)

Troll Bumps (Love and Sex, edited by Michael Cart, Simon & Schuster: Spring, 2001)

The Book (Lost and Found, edited by M. Jerry and Helen S. Weiss, Tor Books: 2000)

Henry 3 by Joseph Krumgold

2011-07-28T20:16:00.000-07:00

(hardcover and paperback reissue)

Henry 3 is a fascinating book about a boy coming of age on Long Island. It is a perceptively told story from a kid's perspective of life in the suburbs circa the 1960's. It concerns this boy's search for masculinity in a town that is dominated by women. Similar to another Jewish writer, Bruce Jay Friedman and his debut novel Stern (1962), Krumgold's portrayal of Long Island is that of a commuter land where men have disappeared to work unsatisfying jobs in the city. Henry 3 deals with the themes of imagination, innocence, maturity and community in the face of disaster.

Henry 3 is very much a book about an adolescent's search for masculinity in a matriarchy. The book begins with an unusual opening. It is Henry attempting to befriend a bully named Fletch who initially wants nothing more than to beat him up. Henry's intelligence and sympathy towards the bully as outsider only confuses him. Fletch is an outcast in the town mostly because his grandfather's goals are to return the town to the farming community that it once was. This stands in the way of gentrifying and the American suburban dream. Families like Henry 3's represent a threat to an older, simpler time. While Fletch, on the other hand, represents someone without the modern family's constraints. Both of his parents were killed in a sense by progress through dying in an auto wreck. Part of this idealism is a plea to either transform suburbia or leave it behind. It is no doubt , this was a subject close to Krumgold's heart as he himself lived on a New Jersey farm for a number of years.

Henry is an extraordinarily intelligent boy who after moving to the suburbs, begins questioning the status of his father. His dad is in a position of promoting war-related products such as bomb shelters. When he sees his father in his office, acting like a puppet to the command of a boss, he begins to lose respect for him. Henry faces a new dilemma in how to become a man without guidance from a male figure. Fletcher, on the opposite side of things, adopts Henry's mother as his own and the two boys become, in a sense, brothers.

Both the boys are faced with a solution to their dilemma when a more urgent tragedy strikes their community. A hurricane, “Holy Hannah”, hits and Henry's father is forced into community obligation by acting in a heroic manner. This causes Henry guilt about the way he has begun to view his dad. Sacrifices are made on the way to adulthood. In this case, Henry does not truly mature until he has experienced both love and pain.

Henry cares and respects his parents but he also needs and wants to make his own decisions. Like his two other coming-of-age tales, Krumgold takes a modern approach to rewriting the structure of a fairy tale in a modern context. In this case it is the Hero Who IS Given Three Puzzles to Solve. I see the sentiment and setting of Henry 3 as a predecessor to the new wave of Young Adult books that debuted a year later in 1968. It happens to be one of my favorite children's books of all time, and I don't think I'd be too far off in calling it one of the first examples of a new type of popular literature aimed at teenagers.

On Henry 3, one reviewer (Maples) wrote: "Has Mr. Krumgold written a sociological treatise or a story for children? Despite the underlying concern with social issues and moral values, this is a warm and engaging story about a special boy, his friends and, most of all, his parents. . . . Mr. Krumgold's primary concern is with the beauty and humor and sadness of human aspirations and the human condition; consequently his characters, who speak in a spontaneous and wonderfully revealing manner, engross us in a personal and individual way simply as people working out their destinies, rather than as symbols manipulated to demonstrate a theory."

The author Jospeph Krumgold, who is most well known for his award-winning children's books, didn't turn to writing for this audience until mid life. He was born in 1908. His father Henry was a movie house operator and exhibitor and his older brother accompanied the silent films on organ. By the time Krumgold was 12 years old, he decided on a career in film. He wrote a number of screenplays in Hollywood when "talkies" first gained popularity between 1930-1945. An example of one of these films, Lady Behave, can be seen below. His first adult novel, Thanks to Murder, was published in 1935 by the Vanguard Press. Working in the Office of War Information during WW II, Krumgold became interested in traveling and documenting real places and people. This resulted in him producing several movies and directing a handful of documentaries. In 1947 he moved to Israel with his wife Helen Litwin where he was associated with Palestine films. He made 15 films while in Israel including The House In The Desert which won a prize at the Venice Film Festival. His luck with prizes though, was just beginning. When he returned to the United States in 1952, he owned and operated his own production company through 1960. During this time, he lived with his wife and son, Adam, on a 120 acre farm in Hope, New Jersey. His next novel, and his debut book for children, was And Now Miguel, first published in 1953. It was based on the screenplay of a documentary he made with the same title that took place outside of Taos, New Mexico. The Thomas J. Kromwell company commissioned the book and it ended up winning the prestigious Newbery Award.

And Now Miguel would be the first in the series of coming-of-age tales that Krumgold would write. Miguel Chavez lives outside of Taos near the Sandre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico. He belongs to a shephard family, a tradition begun by his grandfather. Every summer the men take the sheep up into the mountains. Miguel, no longer feeling like a carefree child, becomes determined to prove that he is ready to make his journey. Krumgold tells a year in the life of Miguel in Miguel's own voice. While Miguel is often rewarded in school with stars and grades, no one ever seems to acknowledge his help on the range. For Miguel, this is of more importance. In his attempt to earn the respect of his elders, his journey up into the mountains becomes a rite of passage.

The second book Onion John, which takes place on a New Jersey farm, was published in 1958. Amazingly, Krumgold again won the Newbury for this book in 1960. The story centers on the small town's oddest inhabitant, the eccentric old man named Onion John. Andy Rusch, the 12 year old protagonist, is the only one who seems to understand John. While others in the town, such as Andy's father, want to help John, it turns out that a little help can lead to a lot of trouble. John symbolizes all that is mythical about childhood. His way of life seems impractical to the adult world. Andy understand him because he too is a child. It is only when Andy becomes an adult that he begins to doubt John, ultimately driving him away.

The last book, Henry 3, which has a suburban setting was published in 1967. Because it never won an award, it's the least well known of the three. It's a shame though. To me, it's Krumgold's greatest work. Krumgold only published one additional book, after the ones already mentioned. He passed on in 1980 at the age of 72.

Henry 3 is illustrated throughout by cover artist Alvin Smith, who is one of my favorite illustrators from this time period. His work can also be seen in two other books I enjoyed immensely: Frank Bonham's The Nitty Gritty, and Maia Wojciechowska's Shadow of a Bull. It's interesting to me because both of these books are often misclassified as "children's books" but like Henry 3, they may be more appropriately classic young adult literature. For example, Shadow of a Bull is also about a boy's search for identity and masculinity. And The Nitty Gritty is one of Bonham's best which I wrote about here in a previous entry.
I tried searching for more info. about Alvin Smith, but came across very little. A couple of other book covers I found that he illustrated are below.

Let me fall before I fly - The World of Barbara Wersba

2011-07-05T03:09:00.000-07:00

In Barbara Wersba's books, her characters fall before they fly. And if there is a bird representative of Wersba, it is the rare and beautiful egret with outstretched wings flying across the Long Island Sound. She is, in my opinion, the most poetic of all living writers for young adults in addition to being one of the most prolific. Her output includes nearly 30 books published since the early 1960's. Each title is worth revisiting. The books are all as good as their clever titles portend. It is Wersba's simplicity combined with strong emotional content, humor and elegance that makes her work stand out. They are also hopeful stories that speak of characters who struggle through life. While these characters are outsiders, Wersba's writing conveys hope for them to manage and survive through means of alternative, fulfilling lifestyles.

Perhaps the one book that relays this theme in its most essential form is George Sand's The Wings of Courage. This was a story that Wersba discovered as a child and carried with her throughout her life. Eventually, she retold the story in her own words in an edition that was published in 1998. The story is about a boy who faces his fears and finds fulfillment against incredible obstacles. It is a story of hope that also has a sense of magic to it. At under 70 pages, this tale has much in common with Wersba's children's books written in the 1960's. But it also reflects Wersba's sentiment that runs through all of her work, including her novels for young adults. Like Clopinet, the once timid boy in The Wings of Courage, her characters are often extremely sensitive only to ultimately realize their potential outside of the expectations that exist within their family unit.

Wersba mentions Sand as far back as 1987 in her novel Fat: A Love Story. This book would be part of a trilogy featuring the character Rita Formica, an overweight aspiring writer. On page 36, Rita imagines herself as George Sand, "that terrific woman who dressed in trousers, smoked cigars and didn't give a damn what anybody thought". Also, like the character of Clopinet in Sand's book, Wersba shows an affection for egrets, by having her characters observe them during an important romantic moment in the book. Additionally, Rita's original object of affection in the story is for a man whose last name is Swann. This all relates back to Sand's story about a boy with a love for studying birds who finds himself through becoming a naturalist.
Wersba, born in 1932, lived in California until age 12 when she moved to New York with her mother when her parents got divorced. She claims that she was unable to relate to her parents and sought out older people to serve as substitutes. She found such people in the theater and began acting at a young age. The theme of an outsider relating to an older person would be one of the prominent themes in her work, most notably in The Dream Watcher, her first novel for young adults. Clopinet, in Sand's book, also has the assistance of an older mentor, before setting out completely on his own.

One of the first plays Wersba saw in New York as a young girl was Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. The production starred Eva La Gallienne, an actress that Wersba was enamored with and proved an inspiration for her in her early career as an actress. Some 40 years later, Eva La Callienne would star in Wersba's play, an adaptation of The Dream Watcher. The themes in The Glass Menagerie would also reflect those in her own work. As for the irony in this situation, Wersba remarks in her 1998 autobiography, "these coincidences, which are not really coincidences at all, have shaped my life entirely. I no longer find them strange, choosing to believe that there is a synchronicity to life, a merging of inner and outer events, that involves us all." Perhaps this sentiment is also reflected in another adult character in her books, Arnold Bromberg, who repetitively states "The Universe Is benevolent". This character with his somewhat impractical leanings, artistic abilities, love for Bach and ambitions for starting new businesses probably most resembles Wersba. Using benevolence as a guiding spirit, the courageous Wersba went from acting to writing, later owned and operated a General Store, opened a writing school for women and started her own small press publishing company.

Strong women run throughout Wersba's work. There are eccentric actresses and girls who appear to be "tomboys". These young women are not your typical beauties and they often dress more like men than like woman as in Tunes for a Small Harmonica or Just Be Gorgeous. She also showcases gay characters and overweight characters in a non-judgemental and charming manner. Many of her characters also portray a love for dogs, which is borrowed from Wersba's own love for animals.

Perhaps it is because I am from Long Island, but the books Wersba wrote while living there in the 1980's are amongst my favorites. Wersba moved to Sag Harbor with her partner, a woman named Zuc, and continued to live there after Zuc's passing. It was in Sag Harbor that Wersba began to foster in a love for nature and wildlife. Her first book that takes place on Long Island, Crazy Vanilla, also has a lot to do with her interest in photography. The Rita Formica stories, set in Sag Harbor, would follow. Her last two books published for teenagers also take place on Eastern Long Island and again are representative of subjects close to the author's heart. Life Is What Happens While You're Making Other Plans is about a boy's crush on an actress and his own personal journey to find a career in the theater. Whistle Me Home focuses on the romantic relationship between two adolescent girls.

Fat: A Love Story has two of Wersba's most likeable characters although this novel is probably one of her most criticized for portraying a romantic relationship between a girl and a man who is twice her age. The story is realistic and told with a theatrical verve which is one of Wersba's trademarks. Rita's narration is both funny and sadly dark. For example, in describing her eating problem, she states "You are familiar, I suppose, with the old cliche that fat peole are jolly? Well, it's true...They are jolly as a mean of avoiding suicide and I was no exception." These extremes of desperation and benevolence make for a romance story that is both tragic and beautiful. While the relationship is unusual, the reader is still convinced and has hope that it does work out for the best.

Wersba's career has been a love affair with books. She not only wrote some of the best books for young people during the 1970's and 1980's, but was also a champion of the format, writing sensitive reviews as a reviewer for The New York Times Book Review. In 1990, her book The Country of the Heart was turned into the film Matters of The Heart. It was one of the last films produced by Martin Tahse, famous for his work on Afterschool Specials.

Wersba also had a close relationship with two important writers near the end of their lives. First, there was Carson McCullers and later it was New Zealand author Janet Frame. Wersba's last published book to date was in 2005, Walter: the Story of a Rat. Her work has been reprinted in numerous paperback editions and has been translated into several languages.

Now, nearly 80, I like to imagine Wersba as she describes Clopinet in her retelling of The Wings of Courage. "...like a migratory bird that follows some inner rule of nature, coming and going with the seasons, listening to the rhythms of life." Or in her own words, from her autobiography, "...a great swan flew over my head on a passage unknown, its wings making a humming sound on the winter air....The Journey continues." As a reader, Wersba's characters give me hope that there is goodness in the world despite obstacles. Through thick and thin, it is the spirit of this writer than resonates and sticks with me. There is a magic to her work, a spirit that sings to me and may give me the courage to break away.

Kin Platt: An Introduction

2011-06-29T06:00:00.000-07:00

Kin Platt was the mad genius of young adult books and probably the most controversial writer for this audience in the 1970's. From 1968 to 1980 he tackled many topics that had previously been taboo subject matter for children's books. Nothing was off limits for Platt and he managed to create fictional books on the topics of adolescent male sexuality, the effects of divorce and parental neglect, schizophrenia, drug addiction, gang violence and poverty. The books had an edginess missing from today's market and represented a time when publishers were willing to take bigger risks. Throughout the 1980's he continued to explore these themes, but the market and the editors were changing. The field of "young adult" books was becoming more conservative. Just as Platt was on a roll, pushing the boundaries, the doors were closed in on him. His last great works, discovered in an archive at Boston University, show Platt at his edgiest. Unfortunately, they remain unpublished to this day.
To understand Platt's books is to know Platt's history as a caricaturist. In his stories for Young Adults, caricature sets the stage, setting apart a Kin Platt book apart from the many other teenage dilemma novels of the 1970's that had a realistic or psychological bent. As one reviewer stated, "Platt takes the extreme, end of the line cases as his starting point, eschewing comfortable, typical, and familiar protagonists and situations for his fiction." His book, Headman (1975), reads almost like a satire of Frank Bonham's 1965 novel Durango Street. And Platt's book Flames Going Out (1980), that concerns a schizophrenic adolescent, feels like a cartoonish version of the National Bestseller I Never Promised You a Rose Garden from 1964. Platt's talent as a writer was in presenting true-to-life disturbing situations through the eyes of a humorist.
Platt was an uncompromising artist who no doubt suffered for his work.
In his own words, he has stated, "I would like to see less genteel supervised attitudes towards books for children and more imaginative approaches welcomed...Publishers have always been afraid of the type of books I wanted to do....I didn't want to keep doing ordinary books. I always felt that I had to stay ahead of everybody else, in my own mind at least...I don't write to make money; I write because the story has to be told."

Telling stories was Platt's forte, but only one of his many talents. And even though many of his works never saw the light of day, his output is one that would make any writer blush. An astonishing number of his titles saw print and included over 50 books.

In Kin Platt's autobiography from 1993, written when he was 81 years old, he states that anyone who wants to be an artist must learn the art of survival. Kin was no stranger to hard times. In his own words, "I've done my stint sleeping on bare floors and in railway stations for want of a room, gone hungry and walked many miles for lack of nickel or transport, sat with beggars more used to the life, and carried my own dreams. But in the end, at times, I did compromise, to eat and live and provide and survive, and the shame and loss of pride has never left me. What I had was the will but not the courage to starve to death." Kin Platt had something to be proud about, for he lived an amazing and rewarding life and accomplished more than most dream of. He lived by his own rules. In 2003, at the age of 91, he died by his own hand.
Platt was the son of a cantor and born Milton Platkin in December 1911 in New York City. Rebelling against his Jewish upbringing, Platt ran away from home at age 7. Pushing the boundaries of what was acceptable from the very beginning, Platt had a difficult childhood. To entertain himself he drew funny pictures. The artists he adored included the cartoonist George McManus as well as the caricaturist and illustrator Ralph Barton. The influence of both these artists can be seen in his drawings. As a kid, he was a voracious reader, claiming to have read up to 5 books a day. He mostly enjoyed the pulps which included western, sports and adventure stories. In High School , he imagined himself to be a writer as well as a cartoonist and later on in life, both these dreams would be achieved.At age 19, Platt graduated High School just as the Great Depression had begun. Looking back at some of the pre-code Hollywood pictures of the early 1930's, you can see where Kin's distinct humor comes from. For example, there is a sort of reckless dark humor than runs amok in film's such as Skyscraper Souls (1932) that is not so far from Kin's sensibility. Kin never went to college. Instead, he began his career at a New York advertising agency as a delivery boy. Ever resourceful, he was soon selling cartoon ads to the company. He lived cheaply sleeping on a floor and managing food at 25 cents a week. Soon he started selling theatrical caricatures to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, The World-Telegram and Sun. He got so entranced by the theater that he forgot to sketch while there and instead began making drawings from memory only. One of the cover drawings he did for the Eagle, in the style of Ralph Barton, became one of the first anti-Hitler cartoons in American newspapers. From there, he started drawing cartoons for ad campaigns, including the characters Pepsi and Pete for Pepsi Cola. Pepsi and Pete can still be seen in vintage Pepsi advertising including a giant reproduction sign that is now displayed outside of the New York New York Casino in Las Vegas.Working in advertising provided his first major financial success and led to him inheriting the art chores for Mr. and Mrs., a comic strip that ran in the New York Herald Tribune. He even did some cartoons of Bob Hope before he gained fame in Hollywood. Also, early on, Kin developed a lifelong friendship with cartoonist Vince Fago. The two would eventually share studio space. Their partnership would be as good a model for Chabon's Kavalier and Clay as that of Simon and Kirby.
In the mid 1930's, Platt began writing radio scripts. In 1936, at the age of 24, the ambitious young man headed west to seek his fortune in the then burgeoning Hollywood. He drove across the country and was almost immediately hired to write comedy scripts. Some of the legendary talents he wrote for included George Burns and Mary Martin. The former, he was a great admirer of, and the latter was a dear friend for over 50 years. In fact, he used to babysitter Martin's daughter as well as Larry Hagman, who would later become famous for playing JR on the TV show Dallas. This would be the most glamorous time in Platt's life. In California he was taking in over $1000 dollars a week, living a glamorous lifestyle and gaining an unparalleled education through experience. Still, Platt disliked writing jokes, preferring a more soft and droll humor that was less popular amongst mass audiences at the time. He pressed on through writing not 1, but 3 shows a week and averaging about 3 hours sleep a night. Elements of a 1930's joke writer remain throughout Kin's work though and a trademark of his characters, even in his YA books, is that at some point they say "rotsa ruck". It's a throwback to George Burns era comedy.
From the beginning, Kin always disliked compromise. He notoriously lost his temper when collaborating. After eventually offending too many comedians, Platt left the joke writing business. He didn't travel too far though, landing on his feet at the story department at the Disney studios. Finally, his drawing talents and writing skills seemed to merge into a singular purpose. While Platt was excited about the direction of the animation medium, he felt disappointed in the compromised roundness of the drawing style that seemed to suck the personality out of the art. The artist at Disney he most admired was Bill Peet, who would also later leave Disney in favor of creating his own children's books.

After Disney, Platt went to work for the MGM animation department where he befriended Heck Allen, who was also a Western writer. One of Allen's books inspired the title for Kin's first children's book. Platt also met Joseph Barbera and Bill Hanna. When they later left MGM to form Hanna Barbera Studios, Platt was hired on as one of the studio's main writers. Within a year Kin was put in charge of thirty writers in the shorts department at MGM. He was soon married in LA, only to get fired shortly after. This would spur on his first move back East to New York. Luckily, at this time, the comic book industry was being born.

In the early 40's, Platt wrote and drew hundreds of comic book stories for Timely Comics. This gave Platt the chance to work more autonomously and to exercise his drawing skills. Platt drew detective stories, superhero stories and funny animal stories. Amongst his creations were the superhero Captain Future, Inferior Man "The Weakest Man In The World" and SuperMouse. He drew these while living in a brownstone apartment off of Central Park West. He would also return to writing animation for a number of companies including Walter Lantz and Hal Seeger Productions.In 1943, at age 31, Platt was drafted into the army. While enlisted he wrote the book, lyrics and music for a musical play Let Freedom Ring. Platt played piano and writing a musical was one of his grand ambitions that he harbored since being a teenager. While stationed in India, as part of the Army Air Corps (USAAF), he drew the spicy weekly comic panel Broad Views for an army newspaper called The Hump Express. He also began doing "lightning quick" caricatures as a performance/drawing act. Army life, however, did not suit Platt's temperament. He was constantly getting in trouble for insubordination and found himself chasing around a Red Cross girl. This just happened to be the Commander's girlfriend and Kin was transferred over to China.
In 1946, he went back home to New York. He was married and had a son, Chris. While living in Great Neck, New York, he continued writing for comic books and drawing Mr. & Mrs. Between 1947 and 1948, he worked for Timely again, alongside Stan Lee, working on the company's teen related comics with titles such as Cindy, Rusty and Willie. He had known Lee as far back as 1941. By 1950, he would also have a newspaper strip of his own creation, The Duke and the Duchess, where he spoke out against Joe McCarthy and other political opinions, but it only lasted until 1954. Some of the hundreds of comic books he wrote included the scripts to the Bob Hope, Sgt. Bilko and Jerry Lewis comic books. Ironically, Platt had done sketches of Bob Hope earlier in his career before he had moved to Hollywood.
His first children's book, The Blue Man, was published in 1961 and introduced his character Steve Forrester who would appear in three more books. The book was a sort of underground hit with librarians even though it was bashed at the time by some critics. One reviewer, from the School Library Journal, stated that the book "could not be recommended for purchase". Others, however, found something special about the book with comparisons drawn to JD Salinger's The Catcher In the Rye. Later Scholastic re-released it in paperback form. The story concerns a boy who takes the law into his own hands after he believes a blue bodied alien has killed his uncle. The character carries a rifle and goes on a road trip searching for the mysterious killer. The subject matter, while tame compared to some of Platt's later books, still sets the standard for his distinctive style.

In the early 1960's, Platt relocated to Santa Monica, CA. He also had an act in Vegas (learned in the army) calling himself The Fastest Draw In The West. The act consisted of him doing lightning quick caricatures in 4 to 5 seconds that were projected with a wall projector. From 1963 to 1965 Platt also contributed several stories for humorous comic books and a few War titles published by DC comics. Platt's wife, Ruth, also helped out by scripting some romance titles. Platt's most well-remembered contributions to popular entertainment were at the Hanna-Barbera studios. He helped create the shows Top Cat and The Jetsons. He also wrote for The Flinstones and Jonny Quest. Of all these shows, Top Cat was the best reflection of Platt's humor with its cast of eccentric characters who hung out in an alley.In 1965 Big Max, written by Kin, was published by Harper Brothers and was the first mystery written for beginning readers. Platt's second novel, a mystery called Sinbad and Me was rejected by Harper, but later bought by Chilton. It won the Edgar award in 1967, was reprinted multiple times and is still well-remembered and sought out today by collectors. Even though this book also featured Steve Forrester, it was far different than The Blue Man. It's strengths relied not on Platt's "edginess"" but instead as his skill as a Mystery writer. Platt would go on to write 2 more Steve Forrester mysteries as well as ten mystery novels for adults. 7 of these would feature Max Roper, a karate expert private eye who sometimes killed with his hands. These mysteries usually revolved around a sports theme.Platt's breakthrough book came in 1968 at the age of 57. The Boy who Could Make Himself Disappear would set his career in a new direction, writing about taboo subjects up until 1980's Flames Going Out. The story concerns Roger Baxter, a boy who is troubled as a result of a dysfunctional family. His mother abuses him. And, perhaps too close for comfort, the absent father who lives in LA is a comedy writer who completely ignores his son. As a result, Roger suffers from a severe speech impediment. His problems leave him lost in New York City and on the verge of a mental breakdown. He finally learns to cope through friends and the assertion of a speech therapist. The book touched a nerve with readers and heralded in a new form of psychologically based YA book that would follow by authors such as Marjorie Kellogg and John Neufeld. The Boy Who Could Make Himself Disappear was reprinted in a number of languages, had multiple Dell/Laurel-Leaf paperback printings and was even adapted into a Hanna-Barbera produced live-action film starring Scott Jacoby.Oddly enough, around this same time, Platt also began writing under a number of pseudonyms. Beginning in the late 1960's, he published 3 "Adults Only" paperbacks that included Pandora (as Guy York), Lovers & Exorcists (as Wesley Simon York) and Sex Heel (as Guy West). Obviously the pseudonyms of West and York derive from Kin's history of moving back and forth from New York to the West Coast. He would also use the name Nick West to pen three books in the juvenile series Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators. But it doesn't end there. Astonishingly, Platt wrote another 8 paperback originals for California publisher Canyon books under the name Kirby Carr. This lurid men's adventure series that Platt created was titled The Hitman. The books have Platt's trademark humor mixed in with all the elements you might expect from a 1970's action/exploitation movie. Reading these books today has the feel of a Quentin Tarantino movie in the works. Also, in the 70's, Platt wrote the occasional comic book story as well as picture books for children based on animated characters.To say that Platt's career was diverse is an understatement. This renaissance man also dabbled in sculpture, painting, architecture and was a seasoned runner and golfer. When you consider all of the TV shows he wrote, that are still viewed today, and the amazing number of comics and novels he produced, it is fair to say that his audience as a creator was in the millions. There is no doubt that his work created a huge cultural impact.

On a more personal level, his work, particularly his Young Adult novels, had a huge impact on me when I was a teenager. This led me to contact Kin via phone in the late 1990's and we also briefly corresponded by mail. According to Platt, "I've developed a personal relationship with some of my readers who have had problems, and by correspondence or by phone, we were able to solve some of them. I helped them to center on the more important ways of finding their own identities and a fuller life."

Kin Platt's fans remain adamant about his work and hope for more titles to see print. They also express the desire to see old titles back in print. Kin's son Chris has been trying to foster interest in his father's legacy for years. This has resulted in Kin's only posthumous work to date. A Mystery For Thoreau, Platt's foray into Historical Fiction, was published by FSG in 2008. The Blue Man was also reissued in 2005 through a small publisher, Twin Lakes Press, begun by a Kin Platt fan with the intention of reprinting more of his books. The facsimile printing featured a new introduction by Chris.
Below is a bit of information on three of my personal favorite books by Kin Platt.

"What makes a book or author controversial? Dealing with a current topic that the guardians consider too risky to discuss. All my good books were so categorized, and I've done a dozen since that were turned down for the same kind of attack on the injustices and frauds I see."

- Kin Platt
HEADMAN (1975)

"Durango Street updated, not only in language which is uncensored street talk throughout, but - more important - in the ending, where your suspicion that Owen doesn't have a chance is conformed."

- Kirkus Reviews

"A taut and very tough novel...as direct as a hammer blow."

-The New York Times Book Review

Synopsis
(from A Teacher's Guide to the Paperback Edition of Headman - 1980, written by Dr. Jo-Ann Lynn Mullen))

This story of street survival and the desire and inability yo leave the ghetto takes place in Los Angeles, California, and in an alternative reformatory called Camp Sawyer.

Early in the novel the main character, Owen Kirby, is sentenced to spend two years at Camp Sawyer, an alternative to traditional prison in that it operates in a country camp setting and according to the rules of an honor system. The reader experiences Camp Sawyer with Owen and gets to know a great deal about him --- his family background, his thoughts, his relationships, and his problems.

After Owen is released and returns to his home environment, the reader accompanies him and sees Owen through optimistic experiences and, more frequently, through the realization that life for Owen has not really changed at all.

From the book jacket:

"When I get outta this dumb camp, he told himself, I'll be somebody.

Yeah? Like what?

He tried reaching out in his mind to grasp the future. Nothing there at all but space. Then he saw himself running...Breathing hard. Scared. For his life? he wondered. Jesus, always?

He thought about the other kids...
Running with gangs. Stealing. Fighting. Stabbing. Shooting. They all got to wind up in the clink, he told himself.

What about yourself? What plans you got to be a big man?

I don't know yet, he told his inner mocking voice. Gimme time. Don't bug me."

Kin Platt has created a hard-hitting, brutally honest portrait of Los Angeles street life. He has captured the rhythmic cadence of its lean language, the real, unglorified dichotomy of its violence and the bitter irony of society's panaceas. Against this backdrop, he weaves a powerful, disturbing story of a young man's fumbling search for personal dignity and a place in the world.

Notes (Dave Kiersh)

The book is short (186 pages) but fast-paced. This has to do with short chapters and short sentences. At times, Platt even uses fragments to build rhythm. Like most of Kin's other YA books from the 1970's we hear the character's inner dialogue through italics. The format is similar in The Doomsday Gang and Flames Going Out which also have an abundance of swear words in the dialogue. Also, all three off these books take place in LA and have unhappy endings. Platt was living in Los Angeles while he wrote these books. Of the three, only Headman appeared in paperback. Indirectly, it seems that the nihilistic and sometimes darkly humorous tone in these books is similar to the attitude represented by the punk movement starting up in LA in the late 1970's. Kin wrote these books while in his 60's, but was still acutely aware of what was going on around him. For example, in Flames Going Out, he even references several punk bands such as The Germs. Books like these would often stem from Platt taking newspaper clipping files and writing about real topics that were of interest to him. Another similar book that Platt wrote around this time that never saw print was entitled Homeboy Toothfairy.
The Doomsday Gang (1978)

From the book jacket:

Forming the Doomsday Gang was the first real goal of his young life. It was an idea that had taken him over so completely that he carries it with him like an obsession.

Doomsday...it not only sound good, it mean something. Goddam, the end of the world be what it mean.

Seasoned and street wise at 15, Coby and the other four had hustled, stolen and fought as long as they could remember. But with their own gang, things would be different. The Doomsday Gang would grow large and powerful. With guns of their own, they would take any gang in East Los Angeles...

In tough, spare language, Kin Platt has written a searing indictment of the poverty, hopelessness and filth of urban decay. It is the painful story of a boy's search for meaning and self-respect in a world that offers none--and of young lives, honed on the keen edge of violence, hurtling blindly toward doomsday.
Notes (Dave Kiersh). This is not the first motley gang of hoods that Platt has written about, if you count his scripts for the Hanna-Barbera produced cartoon series Top Cat. Surprisingly, some of that same brand of humor is found in this darkly nihilistic tale.
Flames Going Out (1980)

From the book jacket:

Alone in her room she played the match game, obsessively. It was another secret not to be shared with her parents.

The match game becomes you and you are the match. It flares and swells and flames brightly and then it dies. That is you dying in the air and you can do it over and over again. Until the day you don't have to strike the match and hoard the flame because you won't be there any more...

Her shrink had told her that every person is really a hundred different people, that she had to find a structure for her life with in that diversity. But Tammy remained divided, angry, and withdrawn -- until she fell in love with Jonathan, who was even more lost than she was.

With compassion and insight, Kin Platt has written a powerful, tragic love story that reflects in unsparingly honest scenes and language some of the nightmare truths that confront today's young people.

Notes (Dave Kiersh):
I can't read this book without thinking of the made-for-tv movie A Last Cry For Help that aired in 1979. This movie, written, produced and directed by Hal Sitowitz concerns a girl who falls in love while recovering in a hospital from a suicide attempt. As in Flames Going Out, the girl in A Last Cry For Help realizes that the boy's problems are worse than hers. In both cases the results are tragic. Additionally, both movies feature psychiatrists as prominent characters, are set in LA, and have pivotal scenes taking place at a beach location. I wonder if Kin ever saw this movie? Ironically, a book even more similar to this movie, about a suicidal cheerleader, was published the same year (1980) by my other favorite writer Frank Bonham. The title is Gimme an H, Gimme an E, Gimme an L, Gimme a P.

And finally, another excerpt from Kin Platt's autobiography to sum this up:

"By the mid 1970's, Susan Hirschman, who had started my writing career by publishing The Blue Man at Harper Brothers, was the publisher of Greenwillow Books at Morrow. She took two of my gang books ---Headman and, a few years later, The Doomsday Gang. Kids liked Headman, which won an ALA notable book award. The Doomsday Gang nearly did but was sunk because of street language. Susan warned on her publicity sheet: Do Not Buy This Book If Language Offends You.

The guardians of the minds of children like to pretend kids don't know all the dirty words, even after being exposed to them all their lives, usually at home. When Susan suggested cutting some of that wordage from Doomsday, I laughingly told her she would have to cut out most of the words in it, since every other word in every sentence was tainted.

Morrel Gipson, soft-spoken but courageous, took Flames Going Out for Methuen. It was about teenagers with drugs and ahead of its time in 1980. Nobody wanted to hear about this possible problem for young people. It died. As did my lead characters."

Frank Bonham's Dogtown (Part 1)

2011-06-24T14:41:00.000-07:00

(logo for Laurel Leaf books. Their paperbacks in the 60's and 70's are also identifiable because the page edges were often painted blue).

The realistic teen novel that dealt with serious issues such as divorce, unwed pregnancies, suicide, sex and gang violence could be said to have truly begun in the 1950's. Its beginnings were much like rock and roll and boasted of rebellion, boredom, and youth with too much time on their hands. It was also a reflection of writers who grew up during the depression and were no strangers to disappointment, hard times and survival by any means possible. As pulp magazines died out, they were quickly replaced by television and mass-market paperbacks. A fiction subgenre categorized by juvenile delinquency heralded in the talents of writers such as Irving Shulman and Evan Hunter. The film Rebel Without a Cause helped popularize this sentiment, yet for a teenager to read such books was still viewed as a somewhat delinquent activity in and of itself. At the same time the books actually marketed towards teens usually dealt with safer content and were categorized less by action than strong character development. Two such excellent writers were John R. Tunis, a sports writer, and Beverly Cleary, a librarian who also wrote for younger children. Thrown into this mix were more literary titles, such as JD Salinger's The Catcher In The Rye (1951), a model for YA fiction in that it set the standard for epiphanies in coming of age fiction. Frank Bonham was a pulp writer of this generation who turned his talents to writing edgy books for teenagers in the late 1960's that dealt with social issues. His work would help bridge the gap between the grittiness of the pulpy delinquent books and the strong humor and character development in the less heavy-handed books by juvenile authors. His books would receive rave reviews and would even be used by teachers in schools, heralding in the psychologically focused young adult novels of the late 1960's aimed directly at the interest of teenagers. Much of this had to do with the Laurel Leaf Imprint of Dell books that brought together a range of such books from different publishers. These pocket books, released in inexpensive editions under a single imprint, were edited by a professor of Elementary Education at New York University and another professor from Kean College. Their efforts helped contribute to 1968 being a breakout year for young adult books with debuts by authors such as Paul Zindel, Robert Cormier and SE Hinton, to name just a few, whose classic debut books remain in print to this day.

Durango Street

Frank Bonham, born in 1914, had already established himself as a top notch Western writer with over 25 novels in print before he turned to writing books for young adults in the 1960's. He grew up in Los Angeles, where he lived most of his life. Beginning his writing career at age 20, he churned out short stories for pulp magazines, sometimes acting as a ghost writer for Ed Repp, where he learned to fill his stories with physical action. Turning to Hollywood in the 1950's, he also tried his hand at television writing and sold 12 of his scripts. His writing would prove successful enough that he would never have to hold a "real" job for his entire life and remained prolific, publishing over 60 titles, until his death in in 1989. After his death, his Western short stories had a bit of a revival, published as anthologies edited by mystery writer and pulp fiction historian Bill Pronzini.

(one of the many pulp magazines where Bonham's stories appeared)
(The Cross and the Switchblade was also adapted into a film as well as a comic book)

Durango Street is one of the first hard edged novels for young adults that dealt with gang violence and was marketed directly to teens. It is also different from its 1950's predecessors in that it dealt exclusively with minority gangs and focused on an African American character. As a noted essayist for the St. James Guide to Young-Adult Writers wrote: "Writing about a black teenager growing up and living in a ghetto was not the usual setting or model character that teenagers normally read about in the young adult books available in the early '60s. Frank Bonham was, in part, responsible for introducing social realism into young adult fiction." Durango Street would be the beginning of a series of novels that took place in the fictionalized city of Dogtown, based on Watts, and the surrounding poverty ridden communities. Published in 1965, the subject matter was so timely that ironically it was released the very same week of the Watts riots. To create the book, Bonham spent a year doing firsthand research into the Los Angeles Watts area. Bonham acknowledges that he was allowed access to agencies in the area that worked directly with juvenile gangs. He visited camps, accompanied gang members at outings, spoke with gang member's families and met with both psychologists and social workers. However, the result of Bonham's research is far different than, say, David Wilkerson's "The Cross an the Switchblade" (1963) whose purpose has more of a heavy handed objective. Instead of preachy reportage, Bonham fictionalized his facts in order to bring the reader into the complex personal life of one particular headman. He drew sympathy to social problems at large by focusing on a single character. According to Bonham, in a Horn Book essay, "I became impressed with the tremendous challenge in rehabilitating a gang boy or girl. If rehabilitation means 'to restore to a former capacity,' then it is impossible. You cannot restore a capacity one has never possessed, and these young people never had a capacity for anything but hard luck and defeat. But with sufficient patience and skill, ideas of ambition, justice, and hope can be implanted." Because Bonham's book addressed such issues directly and fulfilled this need, they were well received by kids as well as reviewers.
(a 1965 issue of Life magazine that details the Watts Riots)
The story begins as Rufus Henry is about to be released from a juvenile detention camp. He has been sent there for stealing and wrecking a car. There is a realism to the character for he appears both street smart and skeptical of advice. When he goes back home to Dogtown it's obvious from his family and surroundings that this is not the land of opportunity. His parole officer forbids Rufus to join a gang. Yet from the perspective of Rufus, joining a gang is a matter of survival.

After a quick attempt at going straight by getting a job at a car repair shop, Rufus is quickly turned off when the owner talks down to him. It becomes apparent that Rufus' main characteristic is his pride. The reader gets glimpses of this through the manner with which Rufus interacts with his siblings. Even more so, it is the way that Rufus interacts with other gang members. He is fearless.

This pride stems from Rufus being a fatherless child. As a kid his mother told him a story that his father by birth was Ernie Brown, a well known halfback in the pro football leagues. While the reader never learns for sure whether or not this is fact or fiction, Brown becomes a hero for Rufus. Just the thought of big Ernie Brown as his protector gives Rufus the ability to escape from dangerous situations. Rufus keeps a scrapbook of Ernie's achievements, but keeps it hidden. The book is a record of his hopes and dreams and he dare not let anyone know of it, lest these aspirations get smashed.

When Rufus runs into trouble with a gang, The Gassers, he is literally backed into an alley. Using his wits and a broken milk bottle to escape, he realizes that his troubles are not going to end there. Quickly he decides to meet up with the rival gang, The Moors, that he heard about through his friend "Baby" whom he met while serving time at the detention camp.

Getting membership to the gang does not prove easy though after Bantu, the gang's leader, and the others make a member by beating on him. After his parole officer finds out that Rufus has been initiated, he assigns the gang a social worker named Alex Robbins. The gang, knowing that they are dealing with the law here, reluctantly agree to meet with Robbins.

As the battle between the gangs grow more violent, Rufus overthrows Bantu in a fight, taking his place as headman. Angered after Simon, headman for the Gassers, threatens his sister, Rufus devises a plan to get revenge. First, he blows up the Gassers car and later he attempts to get some of the other rival gangs to back him up. As the violence ensues Rufus eventually secures a rifle and is intent on scaring Simon out of the neighborhood.

The story takes a turn as Robbins is able to get both the Moors and the Gassers to attend a professional football training session with Ernie Brown. Rufus is thrilled to meet Ernie yet manages to keep the father bit a secret. Simon manages to find out about his scrapbook though and eventually steals its. When he mockingly boasts of the scrapbook to Ernie, Rufus' pride is hurt and he is filled with contempt.

Finally, Rufus devises a plan to rid himself of Simon. The plan involves creating a dance, a huge event with a band and paid admission, where he will either humiliate Simon or start World War III. But with the help of Robbins, and the encouragement of Rufus' new girlfriend Judy, the dance surprisingly turns out to be a success.

At the end of the book, Rufus is still skeptical about his future but there is a notion that he may begin to see some good in Robbins' advice and may begin on the path to return to school.

Perhaps because this story seems so personal is the reason it has stood the test of time and led it to stay in print for over 30 years. In Bonham's own words, "To some extent I am a do-gooder in my books for young people, in that I often deal with a subject such as delinquency, in the hope that something I say in the book will have a positive effect on a young reader with personal problems." Three years later, with the publication of SE Hinton's The Outsiders, Durango Street would get overlooked as the essential teenage gang novel. The comparison ends there though because these works are so different and excellent alone in each of their own right. While The Outsiders is a raw tale written by a teenager, Durango Street is a researched book written by a seasoned pro. The fact that Bonham is a white writer takes nothing off of the edge that these characters are distinctly African-American. Because of Bonham's skill for writing action he is as comfortable here as he is in the Western genre. For example, he does not even shy away from his characters using the "N" word. Parts of this material may be outdated, such as the characters who try to straighten their hair, but for the most part this book maintains its edge for a modern teen audience. In many ways this book can be seen as the predecessor for films such as John Singleton's Boyz n the Hood (1991) or even the young adult novel Scorpions (1988) by Walter Dean Myers. The subject he wrote about and the questions raised by the social issues presented still remain relevant.

The Nitty Gritty (1968)

After the publication of Durango Street, Bonham would turn his talents to writing almost exclusively for young adults. He did not publish another Western novel until the 1980's. Bonham was not the only writer who followed this trend. Another example would be William Campbell Gault, a serious pulp fiction writer also from Southern California who had a successful career as a Mystery writer. In the 1960's he saw the market changing and turned to writing juvenile fiction that dealt with social issues when he could no longer sell mysteries. Like Bonham, he would later return to writing within his original genre of choice in the 1980's.

Within 3 years following Durango Street, Bonham had already published 5 more novels for young adults and would continue to publish an astounding 14 more until 1984. The Nitty Gritty may be his most well known title after Durango Street, but few of these books received multiple printings and had the long standing notoriety of the first. Still, there is no doubt that with each book, Bonham continued to hone his skills. In The Nitty Gritty, we see the writer loosening up, taking a step back from his research and delving into a highly entertaining story that may have even more emotional power than Durango Street, minus the gangs.

In this entry the tone is set in the beginning that even though poverty abounds and hard times are a coming, this is a lighter side of the Dogtown that we first saw portrayed in Durango Street. This time the story is set on Ajax Street and Charlie Matthews has dropped out of school, not to steal cars, but to shine shoes. Also, like the famous play A Raisin In the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, which is referenced in this book, this tale is set more within a struggling family unit and shows the contrast between money and dreams in a black family.

The story begins as the Matthews family gathers over dinner in their apartment. It's an apartment with rotting floors and soul food is being prepared in the kitchen. Both parents are exhausted, stressed out about their jobs and the struggle to get by. Meanwhile, their son Charlie pays little attention for he is lost in daydreams. He dreams about striking it rich, about homeless men who tip him off to buried treasure and about escaping from Dogtown. In essence, he is a kid still filled with hope despite the tired complaints of his family. Unfortunately these dreams are often shattered or quickly brought back down to earth by his tired and jaded parents. They have no complaints about him missing school as long as he's able to make a contribution to the family's funds.

Luckily there is an adult who believes in Charlie. Mr. Toia, his schoolteacher, visits the Matthews household. He attempts to talk some sense into his parents regarding having Charlie return to school. Mr. Toia recognizes Charlie as a talented writer with potential. But for his parents, college, as well as most opportunities, seem like a silly dream never to be attained here in Dogtown. Like the social worker, Robbins, in Durango Street, Mr. Toia infiltrates the family. His voice, while one of conscience, is not always obeyed.

Charlie seeks to replace his unsympathetic father with his own personal hero, his Uncle Baron. Baron is an uneducated drifter and gambler with an upbeat disposition. His adventurous stories, musical talent and freewheeling ways appear as an alternative to Charlie. For Charlie, Baron symbolizes a ticket out of Dogtown and represents an opportunity towards a better life. His Uncle's influence seems to have an even more alluring pull than an education.

When Uncle Barron unexpectedly arrives in a Volkswagon van that he has been living out of, Charlie is ecstatic. Baron tells him that he has plans to make a deal in Dogtown. Once made, he boasts, this arrangement will help him make some big money. Charlie eagerly agrees to help. When he finds out that Uncle Baron needs $150 to set his plan in motion, Charlie is determined to make this impossibility a reality.

This is where the story gets interesting. Bonham introduces a slew of quirky, eccentric characters and comedic situations that set Charlie and Baron on a series of escapades both gripping, real and right down there in the nitty gritty of things. These characters include Cowboy, a tough high school rival whose boots Charlie sets ablaze while working at the shoe shine parlor. Then, there's Breathing Man, one of Bonham's most fascinating characters that will reappear in several of his other books. Breathing Man, who sleeps sitting up and consciously counts his breaths when awake, hasn't worked in 15 years. Yet somehow he manages to survive better than most in Dogtown. Charlie seeks out Breathing Man as a wise man, a sort of ghetto sage, and Breathing Man is more than happy to impart advice.

Snapping out of his daydreams of healing the sick and being elected Mayor, Charlie decides it's time to hustle! The hustling he does outside of school includes salvaging rats, bottles and bricks from a junk lot. He also finds some treasures there. This includes $30 worth of antique coins that almost gets stolen by Cowboy, his rival (maybe a tongue-in-cheek reference to Bonham's Western books). The funniest part though, is when Charlie gets tipped off to a man who claims that he'll buy ladybugs, if he can manage to bag some from a canyon out East. Baron and Charlie take a road trip and discover a treasure trove of the tiny red and black insects. After they've captured a sackload, the critters escape in the van as they are driving back to the city. Attempting to capture them and drive at the same time creates a hilarious scenario.

Later in the story, Charlie and his friend Caeser become contenders in a ridiculous boxing match that includes animal blood and an oiled up ring. They also make some extra dollars by visiting a blood bank. Surprisingly, Charlie is able to exceed his original goal of $150. He gladly hands over this hard earned money to his great Uncle Baron while still enthusiastic about his hero's plans.

Charlie looks forward to seeing the machine that Baron has promised to purchase with his earnings. He is quickly disappointed though when he realizes the $150 has gone towards the purchase of one fighting hen. The Baron intends to gamble the money on an illegal cockfight. When the hen gets destroyed, so do Charlie's dreams. The Baron takes off leaving Charlie behind.

Back in Dogtown, Charlie must come to terms with his daydreams. He realizes that only he could chose the direction of his life and a path out of the ghetto. He cannot follow the advice of his parents or his heros. He must learn to take pride in himself.
Bonham's message is not your typical coming-of-age tale for it deals with a particular type of pride, black pride, and survival in a place of urban decay. Fortunately, Bonham infuses this story with enough energy and humor to balance out the hardship. He brings a difficult social issue to the forefront by focusing on a single character over a short period of time. The format is highly accessible and the book is one that young readers would not have trouble digesting.

The conclusion, as in Durango Street, remains open for the reader to decipher. Bonham does this by presenting the story in a realistic open-ended manner. The situations are so tight, so fully realized and the characters so engaging that reading this book brings to mind images of some lost blaxploitation cinema classic penned by a pulp giant while still maintaining a PG rating. It's also a book with rhythm that maintains a language that is both soulful and unpretentious. In my opinion, it's an even greater work than Durango Street and even the clever chapter titles give this one a zing. One of the chapter headings, Hey Big Spender, Bonham would later use for another title of his books set in Dogtown.
Hey, Big Spender! (1972)

In Hey, Big Spender! Frank Bonham takes readers on their wildest ride yet through Dogtown. This time around the book's main character is Cool Hankins (who appears in several other of the Dogtown books as well including the Golden Bees of Tulami -1974). Like his name, 17 year old Cool is just that. He wears blue glasses, a floppy hat and walks around confidently with a bounce in his step. Unlike Bonham's other characters, Cool seems more free, first driving a Buick around Dogtown and later a Harley. Actually, when I read this book, I can't seem to get the images of movies like The Monkey Hu$tle (1976) out of my mind. It's just got that same sort of funky rhythm to it minus the cheesiness. Despite the ease with which this character gets around, life remains difficult and this is represented by the foster home he lives in with several other children and his Aunt. Like a big brother, Cool is full of heart and gets by through being familiar with the people and being aware of the hard times around him.

The story begins as Cool is working a summer job doing odd gardening chores. He is approached by Monique, his feminist counterpart, who alerts him that Breathing Man was in the hospital and wants to see him. Breathing Man, whose character had an important role in The Nitty Gritty, reappears here as an even more interesting character. He is still Dogtown's wise man and doing just fine without working while seated outside all day in front of the Hob Nob Pool Parlor. In winter evenings Breathing Man lives under the 4th Street Bridge. Come summer you can find his home hidden amongst a mass of underground storm drains. Cool thinks of him as a friend and agrees to see him.

Upon their meeting outside the Hob Nob, Breathing Man offers Cool a job. At first Cool takes this as a put-on. Later, when he is handed a hundred dollar bill, his mind begins to sway. He agrees to meet Breathing Man in his underground hideaway in order to discuss his secret plan. Breathing Man draws him a map while Cool remains skeptical.

On his trip through the storm drains Cool encounters a community of subterranean hippies who avoid the hardships of Dogtown by staying out of the daylight. Then he finds Breathing Man living alone in his neat, minimalist alcove. Breathing Man explains that he is the inheritor of the Le Duke fortune which pretty much makes him the richest black man that ever lived. Cool doesn't know what to believe but when Breathing Man shows him a safe stacked with 100 dollar bills, he is convinced. It turns out that the inheritance totals over 650,000 dollars. The prospect of inheriting this amount frightens Breathing Man, for he believes any sort of excitement could be bad for his health. So much so, that it might kill him. What he would like to do is "do right" by giving the money away to those in need. This, however, creates a dilemma. He does not want to give the money to a charity for he believes it will go to waste being divided amongst salaries of those who work for such organizations. Instead, he wants to give the money - in cash - directly to the people in Dogtown who need it most; to the people that the system has not been able to help. He has chosen Cool to act as a middleman because he knows the kid, trusts hims and believes he has lots of heart.

Cool is wise to the fact that this is too big a job for just one kid to handle. Regardless, because of Breathing Man's trust, and because he offers Cool a hundred a week, he reluctantly agrees. Cool is also supplied with a brand new custom chrome-plated Harley Davidson motorcycle with the word HOPE painted on the tank. This way, he could deliver the goods in style! Cool quickly sets up shop by renting a store front and advertising "FREE Money" on a handmade sign taped up in the window. Both the landlord and his friends are surprised when he attempts to explain the nature of his business, keeping Breathing Man's identity anonymous. Confused, his friend remarks "If it's free, it isn't money. And if it's money, it isn't free..."

The way it works is this: People line up outside, cool lets them in one by one, listens to their hard luck stories and takes notes on small cards. At night he visits Breathing Man where he shares the stories and Breathing Man picks a winner. One for each day of the week. He then gives the requested amount to Cool who makes the deliveries. Upon opening day there is only one visitor. It's a down and out white man named Snow in need of a set of tools to get his life back on track. Breathing Man kindly agrees to help Snow, despite his race.

News spreads quickly though and soon things begin to get out of hand. Monique acts as Cool's assistant. She attempts to organize the crowds that begin to line up outside of the door to the small shop. Cool takes on the role of a social worker. He listens to all the horrible tales of woe and tries to weigh in on who has it worst. It's never an easy decision. Nevertheless, money does get delivered and Cool quickly picks up the nickname "Big Spender".

What follows are not only hard decisions but also trouble. Cool has a run-in with a man who might be his unwelcome and estranged father. Then, he is threatened by Rat-Ass, a chain-twirling leader of a motorcycle gang. Soon Cool is racing for his life while being chases by a Hell's Angels group and ducking into storm drains on his Harley. All the time Cool keeps his wits about him and survives by creating an oil slick that wipes out both Rat Ass an his bike. The trouble doesn't end there though. The biker gang gets its revenge by firebombing Cool's bike and nearly setting the foster home ablaze.

The final straw comes when Snow returns to the free money office drunk and asking for more help. This convinces Cool that while Breathing Man's intentions are good, this might not actually be helping at all. Disappointment sets in until Cool's aunt comes up with an alternate solution. This is where Bonham's philosophy comes into play. It is decided that if people in Dogtown need help, they need it early on.

A consideration is made to help the hundreds of homeless children living in the slum. This would be done by setting them up in foster homes where at least they'd be given a chance. It's obvious that this is a social cause close to Bonham's heart. He makes it clear not through being didactic but by being a pioneer in bringing such subjects to the forefront. Once again, he does this through creating an entertaining story in an accessible format aimed towards youth. Hey, Big Spender! is a triumph on all accounts.

(image from the film The Monkey Hu$tle from 1976). Not related to Bonham's book, but the visuals have a similar feel to me).

Other Dogtown novels include: Viva Chicano, Cool Cat, Chief, The Golden Bees of Tulami. It is my intention to write about these books in a separate blog entry.