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TRACKS

Page history last edited by RichiesPicks 12 years, 2 months ago

19 January 2012 TRACKS by Diane Lee Wilson, Margaret K. McElderry Books, April 2012, 288p., ISBN: 978-1-4424-2013-7

 

"Then, out of the blue he asked, 'How much you get pay?'

"Huh? My pay was none of his business. Yet my pride spit out an answer: 'Thirty-five a month.'

"That figure seemed to stab him, because he twisted his face up. Brina nuzzled his pajama pants, begging for more attention, but this time he ignored her.

"'You walk out, in, out, in'--he made little scissor movements with his fingers, like they were a man's legs--'no hands dirty and company give you thirty-five?' He opened his palm, moved the coins aside and pointed to the huge yellow calluses at the base of each finger, the juice-like blister on his thumb, the grimed creases lining his flesh. 'I hold black powder...drirr'--drill, in his clumsy accent--'...hammer. All can kirr me. I get only thirty-one for pay.' At this pronouncement I saw the midnight fire in his narrow eyes. 'Why?'

"My answer to that was an indifferent shrug. Black powder was dangerous, and it could kill. But he was a coolie. What did he expect?"

 

"Visible remains of the historic [railroad] line are still easily located--hundreds of miles are still in service today, especially through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and canyons in Utah and Wyoming. While the original rail has long since been replaced because of age and wear, and the roadbed upgraded and repaired, the lines generally run on top of the original, handmade grade. Vista points on Interstate 80 through California's Truckee Canyon provide a panoramic view of many miles of the original Central Pacific line..."

--Wikipedia, "First Transcontinental Railroad"

 

When driving Interstate 80 up in the Sierras during the winter months, chains on the tires, salt and sand on the road, observing the snow piled on the snow sheds, watching a train steadily heading up the tracks through this still-wild terrain, it is almost unimaginable to consider the monumental effort involved in carving those handmade grades through granite mountains and high, wild plains almost 150 years ago.

 

Told from the perspective of an Irish-accented, New York native youngster, Malachy Gormley -- a boy who sets out for California at age thirteen to work on the Central Pacific's construction of the westernmost section of the first transcontinental railroad -- Diane Lee Wilson's TRACKS is powerful storytelling about this historical engineering feat. It is also powerful storytelling about the manner in which Chinese and Chinese-American workers were treated and cheated during these years. In fact, I'm still thinking about which is more mind-blowing: the amazing construction or the amazing prejudice and mistreatment.

 

The bottom line for me:

 

We are totally and intimately immersed in Malachy's struggles as part of this "grand enterprise" for a span of two and one-half years. We come to know all sorts of stories and details about many of the workers, a few of the bosses, the awesome dog Malachy adopts from the streets in Sacramento, and the amazingly heroic horse, Blind Thomas, who I can very much smell and touch after 288 pages.

 

But after 288 pages covering two and one-half years (late 1866 through May 1869), we only even learn the name of one of the dozens of Chinese workers with whom Malachy works on a daily basis. One!

 

Does this reveal a problem with the author's storytelling?

 

On the contrary, this is arguably the most powerful aspect of the story, the author's showing (rather than telling) how Malachy and all of the other white guys see the Chinese as if they are a line of anonymous creatures wearing weird clothes, eating weird food, and talking a weird gibberish. To the white characters there is absolutely no individualization of the Chinese workers and this is subtly hammered home in scene after scene. The only Chinese worker we come to know a tiny bit is Chun Kwok Keung, who Malachy refers to as "Ducks," and only because he is the nail who sticks up out of all the Chinese workers. (He is the one who will save Malachy's undeserving hide time and again.)

 

TRACKS is also a powerful coming of age story. It is important to remember that it takes place from the time when Malachy is thirteen until he is fifteen or sixteen. Given the extent of Malachy's moral failures and bad behaviors, he wouldn't at all be a sympathetic character had he not been a boy amongst grownups. He might be big and strong, but that's what he is. Nevertheless, there are times in the story when it is difficult to not see him as utterly despicable -- until I think about being in his shoes when I was that age.

 

"I glanced past the edge, and a sick realization kicked my gut. The snow slide had also swept over and obliterated the Chinamen's winter burrows. The men sleeping there had had no wooden structure, however flimsy, for protection, and the torrent of snow had obviously crushed them where they lay. There wasn't a solitary sign of them now, not a flailing hand, not a pigtail, not a snow-tossed teacup."

 

Here in California, TRACKS will serve double-duty as an exciting piece of historical fiction worthy of supplementing both the California history and United State history curricula. We meet a number of true-life historical characters. And that horse Blind Thomas (who might have been real -- see the author’s notes) is an absolute heartbreaker. But, most of all, we learn about an important underside of our history that cannot be done justice by some sterile textbook passage and that very much relates to how certain groups are perceived here in the twenty-first century.

 

Richie Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com
Moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/
http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/people/faculty/partingtonr/partingtonr.php

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