“Jordan’s magnetic voice marks Caletti as a writer to watch.”
Jordan MacKenzie had a typical teenage life until her father’s affair with a married woman threatens to implode her entire world in this searing and poignant novel from Printz Honor medal winner and National Book Award finalist Deb Caletti.
People ask me all the time what having Vince MacKenzie for a father was like. What they mean is, was he always crazy?
High school junior Jordan MacKenzie’s life was pretty typical: fractured family, new boyfriend, dead-end job. She’d been living with her father, the predictable optometrist, since her mother, the hippie holdover, had become too embarrassing to be around. Jordan felt that she finally had as normal a life as she could. Then came Gayle D’Angelo.
Jordan knew her father was dating Gayle and that Gayle was married. Jordan knew it was wrong and that her father was becoming someone she didn’t recognize anymore, but what could she do about it? And how could she—how could anyone—have possibly guessed that this illicit love affair would implode in such a violent and disturbing way?
“Wanting things for the wrong reasons can turn anyone’s life into a marshmallow on a stick over a hot fire: impossibly messy and eventually consumed, one way or another.”
Queen of Everything: Sex, Swearing, and Banned Books
I recently heard from an ACLU report that The Queen Of Everything was banned in a Texas school. Wow – I was honored. After all, it meant I would be joining the ranks of some amazing writers who’ve had books banned. Shakespeare and Mark Twain, John Steinbeck and Maya Angelou, Arthur Miller and James Joyce. Dr. Doolittle has been banned, and Little Red Riding Hood and even the Bible (must have been due to all that “begetting” going on).
Hide your eyes.
This year, the wonderful Judy Blume was on the Banned Books list (again), as was Maurice Sendak and J.K. Rowling. A Rugrats book (Rugrats Stormy Weather) was considered objectionable by parents, due to the use of the word “stupid.” A book called “The Mystery Of Pirate Ghost,” a ‘whodunit’ early reader, was also considered objectionable – the pictures showed pirates engaged in cigar smoking, pipe smoking, and beer drinking. “Taking Care Of Your Dog” was cited, due to the fact that it used “bitch” to refer to a female dog. To quote the Rugrats, that’s just stupid.
The Queen of Everything was cited for sexual situations and profanity. The book has made people upset before (see article, below). In regard to swearing, it always surprises me how much focus this gets. If you walk down any school hall, you’ll hear all the usual old swear words, plus a few, new inventive ones. I’m sure you’ve all heard them before. I find the subject of swearing is a little odd, anyway. It’s okay to call a donkey an ass, but not a person. Hell as a place is all right, but not as an exclamation. Bitch and bastard are fine as definitions but not when said in a loud voice or nastily under your breath. Same words, same spelling, different reaction. One of those things aliens visiting from other planets would find utterly wacky and confusing.
I don’t have swearing in my books to get people all excited, though. As I’ve said before, I am a writer, and my primary job is to create a realistic world with realistic characters, not a perfect world with perfect characters. Some people swear. Some people don’t. Some do on occasion. So that is the reality in my books, too. Some relationships lead to sex, sometimes for the wrong reasons, sometimes for okay reasons, sometimes they don’t lead to sex at all. That’s real life, and so it is in my books. If I were your mother (I’m sure I’d love to have you all as sons or daughters, but college would get a little expensive), I’d tell you not to have sex until you’re older for a gajillion reasons – disease, pregnancy, the risk of putting too much of your heart where it’s likely to get broken, etc., etc. If I were your mother, I would tell you that saying “fuck” won’t land you in hell, but saying it too much will make you look like you’ve got a limited vocabulary. But my job is not to mother you or preach to you but to write for you. Which is a good thing because I would look (to quote the wise Rugrats again) stupid in one of those collars that priests wear with the little white squares.
Books are information, ideas, and they are open doors. They provide empathy at hours you would never call a friend or family member, and they broaden our own ability to be compassionate human beings through shared “experience.” Censorship limits information, tell you what to think, closes doors. It is judgmental, always, limits our ability to be compassionate by teaching righteousness. Nothing I could write would be as shocking and offensive as censorship itself. Censorship is a hand against your mouth, your hands tied behind your back, a blindfold over your eyes. It’s oppression and control, and were it not done by people in suit jackets, it would be called an act of violence.
