January 10, 2003
GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
eveningsout
But what about the children?
Two books handle the parent-child bond with finesse
Shockproof Sydney Skate
by Marijane Meaker
Perennial, $12.95 paperback
Letters in the Attic
by Bonnie Shimko
Academy Chicago, $23.50 hardcover
Reviewed by Anthony Glassman
Children always think they know better than their parents, and parents seldom realize the depth of understanding that their offspring possess.
It's a timeless quandary that envelopes generation after generation, as two recent books illustrate.
Actually, calling one of them "recent" might be a bit deceptive. Shockproof Sydney Skate was first released in 1973. Perennial, an imprint of Harper Collins, has just rereleased the novel. It's sort of a lesbianinflected Catcher in the Rye, without the massive amount of hype to live up to.
Sydney Skate is an average teenage male in the beginning of the 1970s. He lives with his fabulously wealthy lesbian mother, who speaks in code to keep her son from realizing she is gay.
Sydney, however, has dubbed himself "Shockproof" because he realized years ago that his mother was dating women and it didn't bother him at all.
Of course, the alternative is living with his father, a middle-class, God-fearing bourgeois
Shockproof Sydney Skate
Marijane mecker
****, simply talis. $USTON 01086 ***
nightmare who lives in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Taking up the family business doesn't really appeal to Sydney, who is about to start Cornell to become a veterinarian.
Like any teenaged male, Sydney believes himself the cat's pajamas, the bee's knees, the coolest thing with three legs. Of course, when he and his mother start pursuing the same ivy-league debutante, it might scratch that veneer of invincibility.
"ENTERAS DE THE ATTICES A GEMI
Letters
in
Bases of die sun, Cass WHAT STORIE on tumeo khan it ~BESTY DICEHERZ,
the Attic
Bonnie Shinka
Meaker produced an excellent book that has stood the test of time admirably. Certainly some of the references to books that were popular at the time may go over the reader's head, but other books are still wellknown, and it's the context that is important in those references, not the content.
On the other side of the coin in terms of narrative is Letters in the Attic, an occasionally-tender tale of a young girl's coming of
age. While Shockproof covers one summer, Letters covers a longer time frame.
Letters also switches the parent-child role, with a hardy, budding lesbian acting more like a parent to her mother than vice
versa.
When Lizzy's father announces late one night that he wants a divorce, it sends Lizzy and her mother traveling across a country, from Arizona to New York, where Lizzy's mother grew up.
Lizzy is befriended by the attractive Eva, who bears a striking resemblance to a young Natalie Wood. Lizzy soon falls in love with her.
The duo discover that the man who Lizzie thought was her father isn't, and Lizzie uncovers the depths of her mother's passions ensconced in the titular letters.
Lizzie struggles to cope with her blossoming feelings towards Eva while her mother tries to learn from the mistakes of the past to create a brighter future.
Bonnie Shimko's writing creates a far more likable character than Meaker did. Of course Sydney, like Holden Caufield, is an outsider in his own life, while Lizzie wants nothing more than to be loved and needed.
Shimko also deftly balances being true to her subject and not overly sexualizing a young girl whose desires are in a constant state of flux. Lizzie's relationship with Eva goes through the usual ups and downs of adolescence, and many readers will probably see their own experiences mirrored in hers.
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