By Bill Konigsberg, $17.99; Scholastic; 336 pages
I have to admit, I felt like an idiot when I started The Porcupine of Truth. My first thought was, "What the actual f#@k?" What a ridiculously sophomoric sense of humor! Horrible! So I stopped for a bit. Then I read the letter the publisher included with the book for review: "young adult." OOOHHHHH! Yup. I'm a super genius. So I started from the beginning, keeping in mind the target audience of this book were considerably younger than me, in some cases biologically young enough to be my own children if I had any. That changed everything.
Bill Konigsberg tackles issues that would have been inconceivable in a book 20 years ago … or even 10 years ago. Porcupine follows the travels of Carson Smith during a summer in Billings, Montana. He's the typical bored teenager living someplace insane. But the cast of characters that Carson meets are anything but typical. Aisha Stinson, who quickly becomes his best friend, is the sassy and fabulous lesbian. The two embark on road trip with their self-made idol, the porcupine of truth, as a constant companion and guide.
Is this like other juxtaposed buddy road trip stories? Not exactly. Without giving away the central plot twist in this narrative, Carson and Aisha deal with reality in a way that I wouldn't have dreamed possible. I remember the very first road trip I took with my friends when I was fifteen. While we bonded and had the time of our lives, it pales in comparison to what Porcupine's central characters have to contend with. I worried about getting pulled over or getting call-ahead seating at a chic lake front restaurant. ( I went to private school. Please don't assume anything! ) But Carson and Aisha deal with realities that many young people must contend with, from finding their own food, money, shelter and clothing to putting up with legitimate bullies. I am very glad I am no longer a teenager.
The shocking thing is how well Konigsberg writes the mind of a young person. It's eerily accurate. One might wonder how the author is capable of finding out what teenagers of our post-modern world wonder about or like to do as pastimes. I was certainly surprised to see the minds of my own young cousins put on display in vivid detail. Is Konigsberg a wizard? He might be. I haven't developed that story yet though. One striking example is Konigsberg reliance on youth's disdain for religious tradition. He not only uses religion as an arch, connecting the present and past and young and old, but religion and spirituality become themes central to the ultimate purpose of the road trip itself.
Normally I detest young adult novels, as I am not a young adult. I am not a young anything. What could be worse than reading about some little shit who has a smart phone at age seventeen and still bitches about everything that is handed to him? ( Now I sound like my grandfather. What have I become? )
However, Konigsberg takes that entitled bite out of the bark of adolescents and presents a simple but poignant story about growing up, discovery and point of view that I think children from any age would deeply benefit. I don't know if the adult you would like this novel. The adult me could certainly appreciate its import. However, the ever-present teenage me loved this book. Who doesn't want to drive cross-country and meet weird people and sleep in crappy motels all over again?