On YA Lit: Not in Front of the Children—eleanor&park, rainbow rowell
The lens of history is usually focused on works of past generations, but when a work is not only past contemporary and is now taboo, the reader might also formulate theories of some forbidden behaviors depicted; however, when the work was intended as a genre work in Young Adult fiction, the taint of taboo can escalate into public controversy.
Such was the case in Florida, when there was a state mandate to remove all Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs and materials from funded institutions. There were horrifying images of dumpsters full of books. Currently, independent bookstores will not accept any whiff of a DEI writer on their shelves. A casual question to the cyber library reveals that traditional publishing is now so risk adverse that the entire landscape of Young Adult fiction has changed.
With a 2013 copyright from St Martin’s Griffin, rainbow rowel’s eleanor & park is now an unsellable book, although the author has had notable awards (a NYT bestseller, and Goodreads Choice). The volume itself was found in the free pile of a thrift store, its high-quality paper only slightly waved from the abuses of climate. It is a sturdy hardcover meant for high circulation.
The work itself is set at the end of the twentieth century, with a frontispiece that says ‘august 1986’ and a first sentence begins with a reference to a musical group, and then mentions two other bands from that era. Chapters alternate points of view between the two characters, park coming first and then eleanor; they are teenagers who meet on the school bus, and each chapter heading uses their names in lowercase. However, the school bus dialogue is authentic, and the first page ends with one character saying, “‘It so fucking does’ Steve shouted back. ‘Drunken Monkey style, man, it’s a real fucking thing. You can kill somebody with it...’ “(5). While anyone who has been around a teenager anytime in the last two generations can attest to the frequency of what media censors call “adult language” in the speech of high school students, there are those who do not want authentic representation in books intended for legal minors. That the author has us see the character, park, by his listening tastes –XTC, Skinny Puppy, Misfits—is intended, and does, resonant with people for whom music is also a form of art, with people who can still hear that music in memory.
While the use of authentic language does position the book delicately in our culture more than a decade after the copyright, it is a romance; a young adult romance:
Eleanor was right: she never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.
Eleanor sitting next to him on the couch made Park feel like someone had opened a window in the middle of the room [...]
Elanor made him feel like something was happening. Even when they were just sitting on the couch (165)
That the two characters appear star-crossed makes for fun allusions as the they read high school classics, and that the one character comes from a mixed-blood heritage, while the other lives in impoverished abuse is a nice reworking of the theme. These are kids we have seen, might have even met in our educational experiences. It might have been, that at the time of the book’s Y2K, that the author was checking boxes ro deliberately appeal to the very DEI teens from whom the book has been declared taboo.
The characters do discuss identity, as the honor student Park says “Everything that makes Asian girls seem exotic makes Asian guys seem like girls” (272) However, the scenes of Eleanor’s impoverished abuse become prosaic within the world of the story: a doorless bathroom becomes a mother-daughter moment , with mom watching the door “It was so cold by the back door that the bath water started cooling off before the tub was even full “(261) and with that teen familiar mom-line “How lucky I am that you’re so smart about boys”. But Eleanor’s life at home also involves five children in one bedroom who learn to cry noiselessly, a bra held together with safety pins, and abuse at school as well:
Eleanor looked down at the toilet. Even though she knew what she was going to see there, it still felt like a wet slap in the face. Her new jeans and her cowboy shirt were in a dark pile in the bowl, and her shoes were crammed under the lip. Somebody had flushed the toilet, and there was water still spilling over the edge. Eleanor watched it run” (239)
While these depictions seem to be a conglomerate of teen agonies, there is also the author’s genre to consider—the intention of Young Adult writing is to find resonance, and a pile on of marginalization ought not to surprise any reader.
What is surprising is that the ordinary lives of children are no longer allowed as a topic of discussion to the children themselves. What is surprising is that the work of an award-winning author is seen as a danger to society from the shelf of a library or bookstore. Of course, the children for whom the curtain has been drawn are all too well aware of the various miseries of abuse, poverty, racial prejudice, and, as character Steve says “Fucking stepdads” (286). That such a book, that of the thickly felt world of young adults, is now forbidden fruit to the children of Florida –among other places—is an unsupportable theft of culture to future generations.
Su Zi is a writer, poet and essayist who produces a handmade chapbook series called Red Mare. She has been a contributor to GAS from back when it was called Gypsy Art Show, more than a decade ago. Check out her author page on Amazon.
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