29 April 2004 SPLINTERING by Eireann Corrigan, Scholastic Press, April 2004, ISBN: 0-439-53597-2

 

"Nightmare of Saint Francis

 

 

In the last dream, I sat in Mimi and Matthew's old apartment,

warm in the sun, just watching how the stained-glass window

flickered with light. At the feet of Saint Francis, the coats

of his animals darkened every time a cloud passed. His staff

rose through a swarm of small, circling birds. I saw it all

  

so exactly and then suddenly noticed the lambs and rabbits,

the deer eating out of his outstretched hand. The glass warped

and then they were grimacing. Teeth bared in growls, haunches

straining as if preparing to leap at my throat. The ring of

starlings had grown talons and swooped down, screaming 

 

like hawks. In real life, it was the man who dove snarling,

flecks of foam collecting at the corners of his mouth.

The animals had already scattered and stopped

being animals. By that time, they were just glass shards,

sharp objects to step over as we ran from the sharper knife." 

 

Now that we've seen some impressive crops of verse novels sprouting up over the past few years, I expect that there are some savvy kids out there who, when ordered to find a book and read it, have discovered the "value" of verse novels. Since the writing typically occupies only half of the page, and there's often but a thought or two per page, the reading goes at least twice or three times as fast. This is a warning to those kids: It took me longer to get through the first thirty pages of SPLINTERING than it usually takes me to read an entire 200-page verse novel. If you need a quick read for tomorrow's book report, this is not it.

 

But if you are willing to stay up all night to experience the psychological consequences of a senseless, brutal, and random attack by a PCP-addled druggie upon a family of five, devoting your time to reading and rereading the poems through which a brother and his sister recount the story of their family and its unraveling in the aftermath of that attack, then SPLINTERING is the poetic story for you.

  

The sister (Paulie): 

 

"The Justice Diagnosis 

 

Jeremy's always careful to remind me

that it might have happened, anyway,

anywhere--the tough muscle

in Dad's chest didn't just give out of fear

or fury, but I want someone to pay for that too.

  

I want the guy charged with something--Unlawful

Inducement of Ill Health or just Bringing A Good Man

Down. The shiny suited prosecutor says

that one of the crimes he'll answer for

in court will be called Menacing,

 

and Mimi and Mom actually seem satisfied

with that. I want to ask, Remember when he was

butting his head through the door and chewing

the wood and we thought he had a white beard

but really he was foaming at the mouth?

I want to ask Did you feel menaced or did you

feel like you were about to die in that room

with the white eyelet quilt? The knife seemed so long,

I'd never seen a knife that long. Around his waist,

he wore a brown leather sheath and even it

  

frightened me. The case where the knife fit

was crescent shaped and reached all the way down

to his knee. What kind of person carries a knife

the length of his thigh? Maybe Dad would have been

pruning the azaleas in the back, or staking the tomatoes,  

but he wasn't. Not at his desk, surrounded by files

and phones, not unloading paper sacks of groceries

from the car's trunk. He was facing off against a man

who did not belong at the doorway of his daughter's house.

He was standing alone and trying to keep the rest of us

safe. Why don't they charge him with the words

we use in the hospital? Heart Attack. Heart

Failure. And then I don't know what that makes the rest of us,

obeying so readily, running upstairs.

Or maybe I do. Maybe that makes us accomplices."

  

The brother (Jeremy):

  

"Playing Devil's Advocate 

 

So this is a little sick

I know, but sometimes

it hits me that maybe

what happened that night

was exactly what Paulie

needed. I don't mean

she needed a man to beat her

with a chair leg, I mean

as long as she's existed

my sister's been fighting

someone. Yes, my mom.

No secret, they have it

in for each other like

Cowboys and Indians.

Mimi and I get away

with shit that Mom nails

Paulie for on a daily basis. 

 

The Lord's name in vain,

sour bowl left in the sink

crusting with cornflakes.

And Paulie treats Mom

like a stranger beside her

on public transportation,

as if just the space she takes

robs Paulie of comfort.

In one of the maybe four

conversations I've had

with my father, he's said

that they're just too

much alike. Two tough

chicks trying to rule

the roost. I can see that:

Mom standing over Paulie

with her voice gone cold

and low and Paulie refusing

to flinch. But part of me

wonders why the world

insists that every parent

loves every kid. They have

nothing to talk about.

The only thing they share

is the simmering rage they stir

between them. And maybe

back before she began to hate

the body she came from,

Paulie was a gentler person.

But somewhere the girl

who used to follow me

with a popsicle stuck

to her shirt turned ruthless.

I've seen her harden. Heard

her on the phone demolishing

one stupid girl with another

stupid girl and the next day

I've seen her walking the halls

with her arms linked around both.

Stupid girls. Or basketball.

Paulie is a savage. All elbows

and hip checks and spitting

on her hand before high fives

at the game's finish. It's never

over for Paulie. Never forgiven.

So now she has a reason

to think the world operates

with her same small allowance

of mercy. A man at the door,

relentless, hell-bent on getting in.

So he gave her an excuse

to hammer deadbolts inside

her door, to shut down,

to sleep with her hands

closed in fists at her side." 

 

Throughout SPLINTERING, Eireann Corrigan unmercifully probes the straining and morphing bonds that connect her characters--Paulie and Jeremy, their older sister Mimi, and their mom and dad. And when the parents are conceivably as damaged as their children, it's hard to fault their inability to recognize the dangers along the paths upon which Paulie and Jeremy embark in their attempts to become whole once again.

  

Craig Thompson's BLANKETS continues to stand out in my mind because of the manner in which the author took a great story and raised it to a much higher level by utilizing illustrations to add an essential dimension to his story. Eireann Corrigan successfully utilizes the poetic form in a similar manner, elevating Paulie and Jeremy's tale to a level that compelled me to chew slowly, savoring each and every piece.

That may not bode well for readers on the run, but if you're ready to sit down to a powerful culinary delight of a read, rather than the standard In-N-Out verse novel, let SPLINTERING get under your skin.

 

Richie Partington

http://richiespicks.com

BudNotBuddy@aol.com