The Simple Gift by Steven Herrick. Simon Pulse, 2004. $6.99 — 192 pp.

Who Killed Mr. Chippendale? by Mel Glenn. Puffin Books, 1999. $14.99 — 100 pp.

Revolution No. 9 by Neil McMahon. HarperCollins, 2005. $15.95 — 304 pp.

The Good:
*The Simple Gift is inoffensive, yet overly simplistic

Long poems that tell stories can be marvelous works of art. We think first of the great epic poets — Homer, Virgil, Dante. We think of the great English poets who wrote stories in verse — the anonymous author of Beowulf, Geoffrey Chaucer, Milton, Tennyson. American poets Stephen Benet and Edgar Lee Masters, little read today but fine writers, attempted this form. Novelists like Burgess and Nabokov have given us occasional fiction in verse.

One recent trend that follows this tradition are the recent “verse novels” in the young adult genre. Australian writer Steven Herrick’s The Simple Gift tells in “verse novel” form the story of a boy running from his abusive father. Billy ends up in the town of Bendarat, where he finds a home in an abandoned boxcar, meets an older hobo named Bill, and falls in love with a wealthy girl named Caitlin. Facing the possibility of being turned over to the Australian version of Social Service, Billy is rescued by Old Bill, who secretly owns a home in the town.

Doubtless The Simple Gift appeals to many teenagers, and this is unfortunate. The story is fairly transparent, the ending neat and as optimistic as most television dramas, the characters predictable. Billy is a saint; his father is a jerk. Caitlin is a sensitive rich girl; her parents — we have no evidence other than Caitlin’s whiny complaints — insensitive rich jerks. Old Bill the alcoholic, inspired by Billy, gives up his drinking. Caitlin and Billy sleep together; Billy is inspired to say “... we could float/safe for a lifetime/lost/and hoping never/to be found.” Sounds lovely, if men and women were intended to live as paramecia.

The Simple Gift is a dishonest book. Billy, for example, runs away from home and instantly becomes a guru of poverty, telling Caitlin about “the honour of poverty.” I got news for you, kids; poverty has no honour. Some poor people keep their honor; so do some rich people. But anybody who has lived in poverty is not going to trot out phrases like the “honour of poverty.” In another scene, Old Bill leaves Caitlin’s home — her parents are away — without having drunk too much, stating that “... the wine was too good to ruin/with drunkenness.” No alcoholic in the world thinks that way. Alcoholics don’t refuse drinks because the drinks are nice or expensive.

Worst of all, The Simple Gift encourages whining. Herrick commits the great mistake of some writers in this field of idealizing the young and writing off the parents as “bad.” Billy is a saint. Caitlin would strike most readers past the age of 11 as a spoiled girl who has no idea why she is so angry. Poor Old Bill, grieving his dead daughter and wife with a bottle, is Santa Claus as tosspot.

The Simple Gift is for the simple-minded.

The bad:
Verse provides poor spackle for a plot that’s not up to code

Who Killed Mr. Chippendale? by Mel Glenn tells the story of a teacher murdered by a student and of the reactions of students, teachers, and community members to his death. Although Glenn also writes occasionally toward the prejudices of his audience — “How can those adults be so dumb?” sometimes seems the major theme of so many of these books — he addresses teenagers with some degree of maturity.

A wide array of characters allows Glenn to present many different points of view. Vanessa Rhodes, for example, was encouraged to apply to a college seemingly out of her league and is thrilled to be accepted, but can’t go because, in a dilemma faced by more and more families, “Poorer is better./According to university formulas,/My family has too much money/to qualify for financial aid/And not enough to send me without it.” Other characters share their dreams and frustrations with the reader in ways that occasionally ring true. Herminio Perez and Rosina Robles know better than their peers the opportunities that come from school; Robles says that, “In this country learning costs little for boys and girls./You can be or become whatever you want./ Just because education is free in this country,/Does not mean it is worth/Less.”

This is a noble sentiment, yet the problem with both of these “verse novels” is that they are far more novel than verse. The poetry is wooden, and though much modern poetry is equally clunky, indeed just as trashy, the poetry in these books seems dumbed down. Such writing also strikes me as an easy way for an author to produce a book. The constant switching of voices, the free verse, and the escape from the harsh exigencies of plot or characterization seem to demand much less of an author than a customary work of fiction or poetry.

I guess the best way to test the truth of my criticism is to try to write a bit of “verse novel” myself. Here goes:

My parents call me James. My friends

Call me Jim.

My parents give me grief. My friends

Give me love.

My teachers give me tests. My friends

Give me hugs.

Today I walk across the empty lot

By McPherson’s Liquor Store

Kicking an empty bottle of beer.

Am I James or Jim?

Is this a test?

That took less than two minutes by the clock on the wall, and I did it stone cold sober besides.

The ugly:
McMahon’s fiction raises real questions about American society

Western North Carolina, perhaps more than some other sections of the country, has felt the industrial and agricultural job losses of the last 20 years. Here in Haywood County alone those two decades have seen the closing of the Dayco Plant, a furniture factory, a tanning plant, and other smaller companies; the end of various apple and tomato operations; and an inability, driven mostly by international competition, to attract new industry to this area. The young people of Haywood County who don’t go off to college — and even those who do — face a daunting challenge finding employment here that will reward them with more than satellite television and a pick-up truck. Judging by the age of the employees in various department stores, fast-food restaurants, and convenience stores, we may also guess that many of our older citizens are facing hard times.

In his new novel, Revolution No. 9, Neil McMahon addresses the problems faced by the rising underclass in the United States and creates a scenario in which a radical demagogue along the lines of a Charles Manson brings revolution to the American streets.

McMahon’s novel follows Carroll Monks, a physician who has served as the protagonist for two other books, as he does battle against a man named Freeboot and his band of radicals. Taking ideas from the left and the right, from sources as varied as the Bible, Hitler, and John Lennon, Freeboot forges a company of revolutionaries who begin killing specially chosen people of wealth across the United States. Monks, abducted by Freeboot to save the life of Freeboot’s desperately ill young son, finds himself involved in a cat-and-mouse game with Freeboot, a game in which Monks more frequently plays the mouse. Meanwhile, Freeboot and his men strike and strike again at their rich targets, all the while propagandizing among various gangs and homeless people for an armed revolt against the system.

McMahon’s plot, characters, and language in Revolution No. 9 are no more interesting than most suspense stories. Carroll Monks is a serviceable character for such adventures — an ER physician who has seen better days, a man with few ties to family or friends, an aging adventurer who definitely lacks the easy charm and combat skills of other heroes of this genre.

What puts Revolution No. 9 above so many other suspense novels is the play of ideas that McMahon brings to his book. These ideas are not always expressed as well as they might be; McMahon’s prose occasionally sounds flat or awkward. Yet he does raise a political point that goes beyond Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal, namely: how is this country going to cope with the increasing gap between the wealthy, or even the upper middle-class, and the poor? Will there indeed come a day when the social services system falls apart, when the bread and circuses of federal aid and cheap entertainment no longer sedate the seditious? Will there come a time when rednecks in Birmingham find they have more in common — more rage, more fear, more sense of injustice — with blacks in Harlem than with their city fathers and wealthy neighbors?

McMahon’s book seems to say that this day is approaching. He writes:

More than three million jobs in industry had disappeared over the past couple of years. There was a pervasive perception of the homeless as lazy and irresponsible, but a whole lot of them were staunch, hardworking citizens who couldn’t pay their bills after the factory doors slammed shut. The few jobs that were “created” to replace those lost tended to be either high-end technically — beyond the reach of people without higher education — or minimum-wage....

For all of Freeboot’s madness, he had pinpointed a major weakness that had crept into society over the past couple of decades — a huge mass of rage and desperation. Monks thought of it in terms of basic chemistry. If you put water in a pot and turned up the heat and pressure, the molecules got more and more agitated until they finally boiled over.

Revolution No. 9 is not a pretty novel. If it were a movie, the motion picture people would give it a rating of R for language, violence, sex, and adult situations. Pretty or not, however, McMahon’s characters have some important things to say about class warfare, social divisions, and the tarnished American dream. It would behoove us not only to hear about the problems, but also to begin finding some solutions.

(Jeff Minick lives in Waynesville. He can be reached at saintsbookco@aol.com)