Perma-Bound from Publisher's Hardcover ©2011 | -- |
Conduct of life. Fiction.
Death. Fiction.
Boarding schools. Fiction.
Schools. Fiction.
North Carolina. History. 20th century. Fiction.
Starred Review At the beginning of his junior year of high school, Alex loses a good friend to an accidental d drunken ath, and by the end of that first semester, he has lost his moral innocence as well. After Alex's friend dies, he retreats emotionally while also allowing his new, young, and pretty English teacher to coax out his poetic abilities. Meanwhile, Glenn, another student and former friend, tortures Alex with doubts about Alex's own motives related to both the dead boy and the English teacher, encouraging Alex to question his very self. Although Alex knows that his admiration for the teacher is fanciful and not connected to the fact that she may have witnessed certain events related to the death, he recognizes that he is socially outclassed by the powerful Glenn. Can Alex muster the will to counter Glenn's manipulations to oust the teacher? Both plotting and characters are thoroughly crafted in this stellar first novel. The poetry that Hubbard produces from Alex's pen is brilliant, and the prose throughout is elegant in its simplicity. Although the novel takes place in the early 1980s, it could indeed unfold at almost any time, and its boarding-school setting is specific yet accessible to readers in any school setting. Reminiscent of John Knowles' classic coming-of-age story, A Separate Peace (1959), this novel introduces Hubbard as a bright light to watch on the YA literary scene.
Horn Book (Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)Alex tells of his classmate's drowning and the guilt he carries. Weighing on him are secrets that he and friend Glenn are hiding. The characters' relationships become increasingly complex as their identities--Alex's as a "Good, Solid Kid," for instance--get murkier. The buttoned-up boarding school setting makes the perfect backdrop to this tense dictation of secrets, lies, manipulation, and the ambiguity of honor.
Kirkus ReviewsIt may take a village to raise a child, but a boys' boarding school is a poor substitute, with its 24/7 peer culture and absentee parents "who pay shitloads of money to send their sons away." And when 17-year-old Thomas Edward Broughton, Jr. dies after diving off a rock in a spot on the river off limits to students, his friend Alex Stromm is left trying to make sense of the tragedy. He writes in the journal his father had given him two years before, an ambitious attempt at "the Not-So Great American Novel," where he hopes that "through careful arrangements of words, order could be made from chaos." His journal contains observations, rough drafts of letters, poems and homework essays. Readers may well wonder at Alex's capacity to write this level of introspective prose, but the journal is a good vehicle for slowly revealing the layers of guilt, truth and deception in this tightly knit community. Hubbard's fine debut skillfully portrays boarding-school life and a young man's will to use words to keep himself afloat in that world. Readers will eagerly anticipate her next work, and in the meantime they may try such similar, classic fare as A Separate Peace and The Catcher in the Rye. (Fiction. 14 & up)
School Library Journal (Wed Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)Gr 9 Up-Alex, 16, struggles with both grief and first love in this coming-of-age tale set in a prestigious all-boys' boarding school. After one of Alex's close friends accidentally drowns in the local river, Alex is caught between Glenn, the best friend he wants to trust, and the teacher he loves who may have seen more than she should have at the river that day. Alex takes solace in his writing, penning his first "novel" in a journal hidden at the library. While Glenn tries to draw Alex deeper into his scheme to be rid of the suspicious young English teacher, Alex finally finds his own voice and has to make some tough choices. Strong themes of friendship, loyalty, morality, homophobia, and self-awareness pervade this compact tale. Told in a series of journaled vignettes, narrator Steven Boyer aptly portrays Alex's uncertain and somber character. Only the most patient listeners, though, will be able to value the slow tension built as small scenes build to reveal larger secrets and the lengths the characters will go to keep them. This novel will be better appreciated in print format. An additional purchase for most libraries. Jessica Miller, West Springfield Public Library, MA
Starred Review ALA Booklist (Fri Jul 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)
School Library Journal Starred Review (Wed Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)
Horn Book (Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)
Kirkus Reviews
School Library Journal (Wed Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2011)
Wilson's High School Catalog
William C. Morris Award Finalist
When my dad gave me this journal two years ago and said "Fill it with your impressions," I imagine he had a more idyllic portrait of boarding school life in mind. I imagine he pictured a lot of bright things, sending his only child to an institution whose official motto is Ad Lux. But these pages have remained blank. I have not had much to say until now--when now is everything.
If you are reading this, you have happened upon it by accident. Call me Is Male.
My apologies to Herman Melville, from whom I may have to steal a few words to tell the story that is about to be told, that is in the middle of being told, that will never stop being told. Such is the nature of guilt; such is the nature of truth. But it is the nature of guilt to sideline the truth.
Welcome to the sidelines, Dear Reader.
If you get bored with my literary efforts, with the plot or characters, if you find that good ol' Is Male is putting you to sleep, read a real novel, a Great American one. Read Moby-Dick. Read to your heart's content. Though if you are a reader, the heart is never content.
Newspapers may tell you the plot, but they never tell you the real story. And they never, ever tell you what started the whole thing to begin with. But when the end is death, maybe what comes before doesn't matter. What happens on September 30 is still going to happen.
So, what happens?
1. The bell rings at exactly 11:45. I have been waiting for this bell. I own a watch just so I can set it to Birch School time, just so I can know exactly when this Saturday bell, the one that dismisses us from six days of classes in a row, will ring. The Birch School, like all boys' boarding schools, is timeless; time drags on forever here, which makes the bell mean something.
2. I leave the classroom for the dining hall and eat lunch. (Not worth elaborating on--sorry boys'-school food.)
3. I go back to my room to change clothes. (We all wear blazers and ties to class.) My room feels depressing at this time of day, when I am normally in class during the week. The carpet looks like it hasn't been changed in twenty years because it probably hasn't, and in the corner near my closet, some other guy who had this room before left cigarette burns that I have never noticed until this moment. My roommate, Clay, hasn't made his bed (typical), and a half-eaten bag of Doritos sags near his pillow.
4. I start down the hill to the river by myself at approximately 12:30, but my friend Thomas catches up with me. We arrive at the designated meeting spot at approximately 12:50. No sign yet of Glenn and Clay, so Thomas asks me a question: "Do you remember what it is that makes the sky blue?" Because on this day, the sky is bluer than it has ever been.
"I think it has something to do with the spectrum of light and the nitrogen in the atmosphere absorbing all of the other colors except blue," I say.
"It's weird to think about living under a green sky, or a red one."
I agree.
Thomas says, "Blue is the right color for it, that's for sure."
I say, "I always thought it was weird to think about how you're under the same exact sky as some kid in China who has no idea that you exist, and you have no idea that he exists, only that there has got to be at least one kid in China looking at the sky right now."
"Isn't it night over there, though?"
"Yeah, but there still has to be some Chinese kid looking at it."
"Maybe he's counting stars," says Thomas. "Did you used to do that?"
I did.
Thomas says, "I wonder why we don't do that anymore."
This is our last real conversation, verbatim. Every conversation you will find in this book I am writing is verbatim. There may be a comma where the speaker intended for there to be a semicolon, but other than that, my journal/Not-So-Great American Novel is entirely accurate. Even though I haven't slept for two nights in a row, what you see scrawled throughout this journal that my dad gave me is real. I am big on verbatim because I am big on truth. Truth: as important and essential as rain.
Death Notice, Raleigh News & Observer,
October 2, 1982
(copied verbatim, punctuation and all, from the newspaper in the library)
Thomas Edward Broughton, Jr., 17, of Raleigh, died September 30 as the result of a swimming accident in Buncombe County, NC. Thomas, a junior at the Birch School, was a member of the varsity football and track teams and a good friend to all who knew him there. He was born September 21, 1965, in Raleigh, where he was a member of Christ Episcopal Church. He spent the summer volunteering at the Boys Club, an organization for underprivileged youth, while working toward becoming an Eagle Scout. Thomas is survived by his loving parents, Thomas Edward Broughton, Sr., and Grace Banes Broughton, and by his younger brother, Trenton Banes Broughton, all of Raleigh; by his grandmother Lucy Elvington Broughton, also of Raleigh; by his grandparents Mr. and Mrs. Hendricks Folsom Banes of Oxford, Mississippi; and by various aunts and uncles and cousins in Raleigh and elsewhere. A service in celebration of Thomas's life will be held at Christ Episcopal on Friday, October 6, at 11:00 a.m., to be followed by a private burial. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in Thomas's memory to the Boys Club of Raleigh, P.O. Box 957, Raleigh, NC, 27607.
Excerpted from Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Michael L. Printz Honor Award-winning author of And We Stay Jenny Hubbard’s powerful debut novel.
“One of the best young adult books I’ve read in years.”—PAT CONROY
“Paper Covers Rock is dazzling in its intensity and intelligence, spell-binding in its terrible beauty.” —KATHI APPELT, author of the Newbery Honor Book The Underneath
Sixteen-year-old Alex has just begun his junior year at a boys’ boarding school when he fails to save a friend from drowning in a river on campus. Afraid to reveal the whole truth, Alex and Glenn, who was also involved, decide to lie. But the boys weren’t the only ones at the river that day . . . and they soon learn that every decision has a consequence.
A William C. Morris Debut Award Finalist
A Booklist Editors’ Choice
A Horn Book Fanfare
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
A Publishers Weekly Flying Start Author
A Booklist Top 10 First Novel for Youth
An ABC Top 10 New Voices Selection
* “The poignant first-person narration is a deftly woven mixture of confessional entries, class assignments, poems, and letters. . . . [A] tense dictation of secrets, lies, manipulation, and the ambiguity of honor.” —The Horn Book Magazine, Starred
* "In the tradition of John Knowles’s A Separate Peace. . . . A powerful, ambitious debut.” —Publishers Weekly, Starred
* "Those who are looking for something to ponder will enjoy this compelling read.” —School Library Journal, Starred
* “This novel introduces Hubbard as a bright light to watch on the YA literary scene.” —Booklist, Starred