When Procrastination Pays: CODE NAME VERITY in Normandy
After setting aside Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein a couple of times (never the book's fault), I am happy to report that I have finally gobbled its 452 pages in just three days. Code Name Verity·has been at the top of my to-read list ever since I read about it here, but in the end, my procrastination paid off last week since my initial eagerness was enhanced by the perfect reading environment: a·beach house on the Normandy Coast with a (distant) view of Britain and heaps of WWII history all around us.
The quick scoop: Code Name Verity takes us into WWII Britain and France as experienced and described by two plucky and brilliant young women, Maddie (the pilot) and Julie (the intelligence agent). War brings them together, and their friendship leads them to make great sacrifices as they venture into enemy territory (occupied France) together. The tone is chipper and the pace is quick once we get oriented. At first the reader doesn't exactly know who is who or who is where, and that's part of the fun. Once we do know some of the answers, the pages of the book are fairly packed with suspense and they simply fly.
Tricky Territory:·I was a bit disoriented by the first-person narration at first. Ostensibly it's the confession being written by a captured British agent, but it begins instead to tell the story of two girls' friendship. I admit that I was rolling my eyes a bit and thinking that the frame story felt very unnatural. But down the road we realize that there's a reason for this artifice: Julie (the first narrator) is putting on a fantastic performance with this confession that is also riddled with critical information. We realize this even before we switch to Maddie's POV, but it's with Maddie that all the pieces begin to fall stunningly into place via lots of tricky plotting that almost never feels forced
Voice: We get both women's voices, and they are quite distinct, but I have to confess that I especially loved Julie's. Especially her ALL CAPS rants about NOT BEING ENGLISH (she's Scottish) and--less playful--the way she manages to describe tortures inflicted on her while still being weirdly funny. Maddie, whose part comes second, has this tendency to burst into tears at the worst moments that I loved, and her straightforward sweetness (no saccharine, though, despite the wartime setting) is an excellent foil for Julie's subtlety.
Friendship (and the absence of romance): There are lots of books with wartime settings that are full of urgent romances, but here friendship and meaningful work are what keep these two women going. An inevitable question for some readers of Code Name Verity is if the love between Julie and Maddie is just friend love or love love. There are a couple of scenes that are a touch ambiguous, and if you wanted to see theirs as an undeclared same-sex attraction, I suppose you could. But you could also say the same thing for a few bits between Maddie and Julie's brother.
Really, though, insisting that every deep connection resolve itself into romance would go against one of the themes of the book, which is that certain friendships can change your life as suddenly and completely as any romance.
Cool History Stuff: I absolutely DON'T read fiction to learn history, but it's cool to brush up against not just period-related facts but also situations you hadn't considered. For example, one of the problems Maddie faces is a horny bastard in the French Resistance cell that hides her. Because she's in hiding, she is pretty much at his mercy, which is a situation I never considered, although it would be real for many people in wartime seclusion, not just those who were in prison.
Another bit that doesn't often get discussed in adventure stories: what about menstruation in prison? In Code Name Verity, Julie has a·heavily coded conversation with a radio interviewer, who also happens to be another woman. The interviewer asks Julie things like,·"Can I send you towels?,"·"You're not--?," and·"You haven't been--?" Then we get this:·
I'm sure Engel [the guard/translator] was able to fill in the blanks:
--Can I send you (sanitary) towels?
--No thanks, I've stopped (bleeding).
--You're not (pregnant)? You haven't been (raped)?
I also love how Julie has to write on all kinds of random pages (paper shortage), including a Jewish doctor's prescription pad, which she uses--incidentally--to make jokey prescriptions for one of her guards (several good shaggings prescribed). ·
Packaging: Keeping in mind that the author usually has VERY LITTLE (if any) say in the jacket copy, I found the description on the back a bit misleading because it gives little indication that we'll actually get equal amounts of narration from both women. Ditto for the cover, which only shows the silhouette of one woman. And the title, which refers only to Julie's code name even though Maddie is just as important. Maybe in my mind I'll think of it as Verity and Kittyhawk. But I admit that "Code Name Verity" has a lovely ring to it.
Highly recommended for readers who like a strong female lead, anyone interested in WWII, those who like a kick of page-turning adventure, and budding engineers/techie types. Code Name Verity is a perfect crossover novel with as much adult appeal as teen appeal.
HAPPY FAMILIES is the antidote to the "I'm Christian unless..." disease
The short version of my post today is this: anyone who has been moved, intrigued, or otherwise affected by the "I'm Christian Unless You're Gay" essay by Dan Pearce (aka Single Dad Laughing) NEEDS to read Tanita S. Davis's newest book, Happy Families.
The reason that the Single Dad Laughing piece is back on my mind is that Dan recently posted in "A Teen's Brave Response" about how the essay led to one teenager coming out to his family and community--and calling them to live their faith differently.
For those who haven't read the "I'm Christian Unless You're Gay" essay, let me summarize: Dan writes gently, humbly, but also compellingly about the tendency in lots of faith communities to reserve "full" love for a select few. Here's a bit that's relevant to what I'm going to say about Tanita's book:
“Oh, but you’re not gay? You’re clean, and well dressed, and you have a job? You look the way I think you should look? You act the way I think you should act? You believe the things I think you should believe? Then I’m definitely a Christian. To you, today, I’m a Christian. You’ve earned it.”
I bet you’ve heard that message coming from others. Maybe you’ve given that message to others.
Either way, I hope we all can agree that we mustn’t live that message. We just shouldn’t.
So now that you've got that (and really, you need to go read the whole essay), let me tell you what this has to do with award-winning YA author Tanita S. Davis's Happy Families. Here's the deal: her book is about two teens from a strong Christian family and their experiences coming to terms with the discovery that their dad is a transgender person.
You might think you know where this is going (shouting matches, disgust, excommunication), but you don't. What you actually see is a family figuring out new dimensions of what love and commitment mean. This is a book that can speak in powerful ways to believers and secular readers, a book that puts the reader in a "what if..." position and educates us without ever getting preachy.
Let's start with an important fact: Tanita sets things up in Happy Families in such a way that certain faith communities--very conservative ones--actually COULD process the choices made by the characters. (I rarely get to claim much "street-cred" but for once I get to! As someone who was raised inside a very conservative evangelical community, I am in a perfect position to see all the brilliant moves that Tanita makes.)
For one thing, Tanita separates transgender behavior from homosexuality and infidelity. In Happy Families, we see that the dad's decisions are about an expression of selfhood, not about sexual infidelity to his wife. The idea that a transgendered individual could still be faithful to marriage vows--and that his or her spouse should be as well--is extremely powerful and will give faith communities something to think about seriously in how they react to non-mainstream gender expression in their congregations.
Speaking of... Christianity in Happy Families rang totally true to me and reminded me of how Sara Zarr portrays Christianity in The Story of a Girl (there, it's the mystery behind a forgiving friend). Christianity offers one context for the story, not the message of the novel...which is how most "inspirational" fiction reads to me, and which is why it's so repetitive.
Far more powerful than the gospel message pasted into a novel is a fictional encounter with a family that makes a reader ask, what have they got that makes this kind of caring possible? That is what Happy Families accomplishes, and that is no small feat. (Let me make this personal: The reaction of the teen protags' mom is just... amazing. I aspire to have even a fraction of her faithfulness as a spouse. Other Christians who read this book should, too.)
Another really important aspect of this book--and one that brings an interesting angles for readers from all backgrounds--is that it shows that gender and sexuality aren't just something that teens experience ("who am I? who do I want to love? who do I want to be?) but are also things they have to come to terms with in others--sometimes even in their parents. That is, as far as I'm aware, an underrepresented perspective in YA.
Finally: as you already know from my rant about glossaries, I am usually staunchly against the presence of reference material at the back of any sort of novel. But I think that in Happy Families the glossary of preferred terms and the resource list in the back serves as a subtle call to action. It's like it tells us, "how you speak is one thing you can change starting now to be more loving to families like this one in your community."
That is, I think, a message that Dan Pearce--and all of us who want to stomp out the "I'm Christian unless..." tendencies in ourselves--can get behind.
TK&TB release day: gratitude and a new super power
It's official: The Knife and the Butterfly is OUT IN THE WORLD. Ask for it in your local bookstore, request it from your library, or order it online. If you read it and love it, consider these (mostly serious) suggestions for helping to get the word out about a book you love.
Today I'm trying out my divisibility suit, which allows me to be in three places at once. So I'm at YA Outside the Lines talking about the things Azael carries, I'm here at I Read Banned Books explaining how TK&TB was inspired by·the students I never got to teach, but I'm also right here at home, serving up the acknowledgments page of The Knife and the Butterfly in light of its release:
Much gratitude to the following professional rock stars: my agent, Steven Chudney; my editor, Andrew Karre; and Lindsay Matvick, Elizabeth Dingmann, and all the others at Lerner who work behind the scenes to make great books happen. I’m also grateful to the Blythe Woolston for blazing trails and sharing her wisdom.
A special thank you to the turn-around scholars of my freshman English summer school class at Davis High in Houston. I started finding Azael’s voice while we were writing together back in 2007, and you told me that you wanted to hear more of it. I’m glad you put me on the right track.
To my writing group, thanks for reading the manuscript (twice). To Alisa, thank you for the friendship that makes writing seem possible all over again every time we talk.
To my families from Kilgore, El Paso, Houston, Denver, and beyond, thank you for believing in my writing. Special thanks to my parents, who can find redemption anywhere and who support me in everything, and to my brother, Justin, who never, never leaves me in the lurch.
And most of all, thank you to my boys for all the days and nights you shared me with my writing. Arnulfo, thank you for reading and for listening. I still can’t believe my luck. Liam, thank you for your jokes, your laughter, and your besos. You two are the best part of my every day.
Thanks, everybody!
