A transparently genuine stream-of-consciousness narrative from a little boy's point of view. I don't know if there's a some sort of ruling against dialogue punctuation in bildungsroman of the blue-collar British Isles--this, Frank McCourt, Trainspotting, Vernon God Little if I may include blue-collar Usan writing by Brits, and Usan writing by Usans, too, like Cormac McCarthy--but Roddy Doyle follows it. Is it Joyce's influence? Is it just cool, like Faulkner? (José Saramago gets a pass, by the way. He can do no wrong.)
Is it okay that I confuse Doyle with T.C. Boyle, whom I haven't read, and that I want to call the book Paddy Doyle Ha Ha Ha?
Oh for goodness' sake.
For starters, the errors in the copy of this Bantam print. "Whose in the backseat?" and numerous random letter changes. It was the first pulp paperback I've read in ages--since last December's re-read of my high-school era Return of the King--and it had the same font as Judy Blume's Forever, which I haven't seen in decades but whose words I scoured off the page and which I can remember remember by appearance as well as by context.
The thing that's Rita Mae Brown's fault, not her publisher's, is just how perfect Molly is. Overcoming her dirt-poor childhood spent plucking potato bugs, excelling academically and intellectually despite her family's disdain and discouragement, physically gifted athletically and aesthetically, and queer. One of the criticisms I read of Lonesome Dove--I love the juxtapositions wrought by my eclectic reading plan--is reverse racism by making the black character Deets flawless instead of human. Mollly's a lot more interesting to listen to than someone dumb as a stump--and than Deets, who utters hardly a word--but how handy it is for Brown that a character who has to face the challenges society sets for the queer does so with such exceptional talents and personality, who is also flawless. What about the lesbian who is merely average? Also, Brown? Whether het or not, over adoption lines or not, incest is fucked up.
Anyway, a quick and dirty read, just like Brown's heterosexual fucking, but not as pointless. I hope it is a sign of social progress that it is not as audacious and revolutionary to me now as it needed to be 30 years ago upon publication.