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Lost
in the River of Grass by Ginny Rorby
(Carolrhoda Books, Hardcover, 255 pp., $17.95) Reviewed by Deb Alberto
In Ginny Rorby’s fourth novel, Lost in the River of Grass, we meet Sarah Emerson,
a smart yet somewhat ambivalent character who does not quite fit in among the prep school types at Glades Academy. Sarah’s
mom works in the lunchroom at the school, but Sarah, who narrates the story, is quick to point out that her attendance at
Glades is due to a scholarship based on her participation on the swimming team. She describes herself as the “token,
poor-but promising” student and the academy is a place where she unsurprisingly does not fit in.
At the start, Sarah is perturbed
by the fact that her class is going on an overnight field trip to a swamp, and her awkward attempts to make friends aren’t
going so well. That is, until she meets Andy, a local kid whose parents manage the camp where they are staying. Andy is working
on his airboat at the time of their meeting, and he takes an immediate interest in Sarah, inviting her out for a ride on his
airboat. Sarah
figures she hasn’t much to lose, so she fakes sick to get out of the class hike and ventures out on the airboat trip.
Andy, after all, shares her sense of adventure and her socioeconomic status, and, at last, she feels some camaraderie with
someone. Her girlish sense of infatuation takes over as she ventures back to her tent to change into something cute.
Figuring she’ll be back before the class returns after lunch she sees no harm in taking to the swamps with this seemingly
harmless kid. Of course the reader knows all kinds of things can go wrong, while the character feels a young teenager's sense
of invincibility. That is, until things take an inevitable turn toward disaster. . In the midst of the misadventure, Sarah reluctantly learns
something about conservation and the ways of nature. For instance, she pockets a duck whose family was run over and scattered
when she took to the helm of the airboat. The duck remains her constant companion, despite objections from Andy who subtly
tries to teach her the ways of the wild and its Darwinian nature. When Sarah suggests burying the family of ducks that was
killed, Andy suggests letting them be. An argument ensues. “What have you got against letting the dead feed the living?
Something should eat them,” Andy says. “Otherwise their death is wasted." As the title suggests, Sarah and Andy wind up lost in a muddy
swamp crawling with snakes and alligators. Andy is the voice of reason, unafraid – after all, the Everglades is
his backyard. The two venture through the darkness, sleep in trees and argue incessantly as they form a bond that can only
be formed in the direst of circumstances. For Sarah, the infatuation is replaced by fear and the pain that goes along with
being cold and lost in a swamp, but still she manages to find some peace in the beauty that surrounds her: A cloud had drifted across the moon, but now it moves on, exposing dozens of nervous birds
scattered throughout the trees behind us. Not just great blue herons, but brilliantly white common egrets in the canopy, the
smaller snowy egrets and white ibises beneath them. They looked like ghosts among the black leafy branches. Except for the
mosquitos whining, the distant but ominous sound of thunder, and the discomfort of tree bark pressing into the welts on my
skin, there is something about being with all these birds that is comforting. They make me feel safer. Rorby is undoubtedly familiar with the flora and fauna of the Everglades, which adds an extra layer of assimilated
awareness to this adventure story. Late in the book, the reader learns
something not previously revealed about Sarah, which I found a little abrupt, but overall, Lost
in the River of Grass is a great read, especially to anyone interested in learning more about the Everglades and who
enjoys the sense of adventure this page turner brings to life..
Deb Alberto is a Miami native and former journalist who is pursuing her
MFA in Creative Writing at Florida International University.
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Freak
Show by James St. James (Hardcover, Dutton Juvenile, 224 pp., $18.99, 15 and up) Reviewed
by Susan Jo Parsons
If you thought your adolescence sucked, and that it was so hard to fit in because of some little quirk or flaw you may have
had, consider Billy Bloom’s dilemma in James St. James’ Freak Show. Billy is a seventeen-year-old
New Jersey drag queen newly transplanted to Florida. He has been passed on to his father by his mother,
who “couldn’t take another day,” so Billy moves into his father’s mansion on a Fort Lauderdale waterway.
His dad enrolls him in an excusive prep school which is located at the edge of a swamp. Dwight D.
Eisenhower Academy, according to Billy, is populated by “A seething, writhing army of upper-crusties…Stepford
teens in full preen…your choice of blond or blonder…the WASP nest.”
This nest
of “WASPS,” “Evil Cheerleaders,” “Junior Klansmen,” “Muffy Mafias,” “Bubba
Gumps,” “Bible Belles” and “Debutaunters” have never seen the likes of Billy. Conservatively,
Billy dresses as a pirate for his first day at school. No dress, no makeup. Well, OK,
the remnants of mascara. And just a little lip gloss. And a crimson sash.
And so the disgusted looks, the cruel remarks, the spitballs, the little punches, the kicks from behind and “ballistic
weaponry” begin (“rubber bands…pencils, pens…maxi pads…ketchup in a condom…large and
small rocks…dog shit, bird shit, hamster shit”…). The Fort Lauderdale Billy lives in
is a little different from the one I call home. The teens I have encountered here seem pretty tolerant.
And most teachers I know don’t overlook gay bashing in the classroom—even if the bashers are star members
of the school’s football team. But it’s fiction, and the character is prone to hyperbole, so
I willingly tossed my Fort Lauderdale aside for Billy’s for a while. The tauntings rage on.
A group of Bible Belles wait for Billy in the mornings chanting in unison, “If a Man also lie with mankind, as
he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be
upon them.” And St. James writes that “The jackals are circling…The violence is now
flagrant, even casual. Bruises are commonplace. As is blood.” Billy finds one ally, however, a
girl he refers to as “Blah-Blah-Blah.” He doesn’t bother to learn her name because, after
all, she will only speak to him behind the bookshelf in the library when no one is looking. She is simply
a source of gossip for him, and later a “sidekick” for one of Billy’s schemes, and he apparently doesn’t
appreciate her risking her life to befriend him. But I forgive Billy because he has a troubled life. He
slowly reveals that his mother is not quite up for motherhood, and his father is mostly absent. Billy suffers from self-loathing
and on particularly bad days he hides in a locker located in his bedroom, or in between the folds of a sofa bed in a guest
room. He finally dares to appear at school in full drag after realizing that they all hate him anyhow,
so what the heck. He’s not going to give into them. But his outrageous outfit
(as a “Radioactive Swamp Zombie”) ignites the worst violence to date in members of the football team, who he refers
to as the “Backseat Boys” since they sit in the back of his Biology class. However, amazingly, one of the Backseat
Boys, Flip, leaves the ranks and rushes to Billy’s rescue during the severe beating. So Billy
falls in love. Who could blame him? Flip is a “Bambi-eyed pretty boy,” with
“white-blond hair like Icelandic royalty,” and “bright green eyes, like kryptonite.” Flossie,
Billy’s African-American maid and chauffeur, adds that Flip “doesn’t have the brains God gave a squirrel.”
Billy struggles to maintain the friendship with Flip, happy just to smell his sweet scent and see his golden
hairs up close even if Flip is heterosexual and off limits. After some successes and some setbacks,
Billy decides to go for it—he campaigns for Homecoming Queen. The competition is stiff as he runs
against a Bible Belle who has been campaigning since the 7th grade. The
joy of this book is when Billy goes into full drag, which is often. Take, for example “The Application
of the Maquillage:” Your face? White! Yes—Look At
Me White…The foundation must be thick and oily—the worse for your skin, the better it will look. Pile
on pound after pound of it. Slather it on with a spatula—it should be two or three inches deep. I want to see bird
tracks in there by morning…Your lips—a slash! A gash of red, blood red—raw like
a wound…On the cheeks? Around the eyes? Perhaps a little color? Technicolor,
darling! And when Billy selects, or makes, his dresses it’s a day long process. Or
a week’s process. There is the Zelda Fitzgerald-After-the-Fire look. And the Super
Freak. There is the application of various fruit to wigs or “a hibiscus to the ear.” Everything
has to be PERFECT! The book is a quick read since it is broken up into little chapters and has lots of
white space between the paragraphs. St. James’ demonstrates the character’s exuberance BY HAVING
HIM SHOUT A LOT ABOUT HOW FABULOUS OR HORRIFYING SOMETHING IS!! Another fun aspect of the book is
when the narrator admits he is totally unreliable. For example, about half way through the book, Billy
stops all the action to admit that he lied about what really went on between him and his mother back in New Jersey. The book has a wild climax, with the whole school and the press present. In the end, while Billy
is a bit prone to exaggeration, the book should appeal to anyone who is going through, or has experienced those painful ups
and downs of adolescence. I just wish he had been a little nicer to Blah-Blah-Blah.
Susan Jo Parsons is Publisher of The
Florida Book Review
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