Mimi Thebo (2004) Hit the Road, Jack. London, Harper Collins 978-0-00-714278-1

 

A young adult fiction book about a teenage boy feeling a misfit at a school and beginning to clash with his mother, wondering if finding his father will help him find himself.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]

[Spoiler alert]

Jack is a young teenage boy who finds letters from his father to his mother. He has only hazy memories of his father but has heard that he is now living on the streets. He blames his mother for rejecting his father and sets out to find him.

Breaking all the rules he sneaks out after bedtime and meets a cast of interesting characters who are drawn into his search, risking their own safety in doing so.

In finding his drug addicted and homeless father, he recovers memories of the physical abuse his father subjected his mother to – and as a small child he witnessed 

His search reaches a dramatic and dangerous end but cements his friendship with the people who he has met and enables him to find “his tribe”.

This is really heart-warming tale and deals with the recovered memories of the abuse in a way that would be appropriate for a young teenager to read without diminishing the horrific nature of the abuse.

Nancy Werlin (2006) The Rules of Survival. New York, Speak. 978-0-14-241071-4

 

The narrator is the eldest of three children who live with their neglectful and abusive mother. The story follows her increasingly erratic behaviour as she pursues a man who has rejected her until a tragedy occurs.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]

[Spoiler alert]

This is an interesting book as it is the first one which portrays an abusive female in a heterosexual relationship. It is interesting to see portrayed how a character – the woman in this case – who is less physically strong, uses violence through the manipulation of other people as well as being mentally and emotionally abusive.

The novel is primarily the story of the three children and how they develop techniques to survive their mother’s neglect and abuse. The eldest child, the narrator, involves a man he meets at the counter of a store. He doesn’t realise it at the time but he is connecting with an adult who has survived childhood abuse. Unwittingly he brings the man into their family and into an intimate relationship with the mother. It is when he experiences her manipulation that he ends the relationship, sparking an escalating pattern of violence, usually at the hands of her new lovers, and abuse towards him. It escalates to a tragic conclusion and he is then drawn in to gather together a group of people to support the children.

This is a young adult novel, with the main character, Matthew Walsh, writing a letter to his youngest sibling, Emmy, who would have been too young to remember the details.

 

Awards:

• Finalist National Book Award for Young People’s Literature 2006
• Finalist Los Angeles Times Book Prize 2006
• American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults 2007

Swati Avasthi (2010) Split. New York, Random House. 978-0-375-86341-7

Swati Avasthi uses the voice of a 16-year old boy to tell the story of family violence. Jace is the son of a respected high court judge who regularly abuses his wife, causing significant physical injury and, as we come to discover towards the end of the book, taking away her capacity for self-determination.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]

[Spoiler alert]

At the beginning of Split, Jace has been thrown out of the house as a result of standing up to his father, protecting his mother, and fighting back. He flees across the US to his older brother who had made a similar journey a few years previously. His brother has changed his identity and set up a new life to protect himself from a father not ready to relinquish control or tolerate being disobeyed.

Jace’s contact with his brother threatens the safety of both of them, and Jace comes with a secret – he is already guilty of perpetrating violence and abuse towards a romantic partner. The story unfolds with both brothers taking steps to free themselves of the cycle of abuse and understanding the boundaries and limitations of all those involved.

I found the book a really compelling read. It is a YA (young adult) novel and good that issues like this are explored with people who might be embarking on their first serious romantic and sexual relationships. The abuse does very much focus on extreme violence, however, and it might have been helpful for some of the controlling aspects of abuse to have been been explored. Jace’s involvement in violence is portrayed as a loss of control and an anger management issue, rather than the more complex aspects of domestic abuse displayed by his father’s patterns of control. Violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

Swati Avasthi worked with survivors of domestic violence for three years through her co-ordination of a legal clinic and has said that during her time she spoke with thousands of survivors and spoke out, in lectures, about some of the issues.

In this story she wanted to explore what it would be like for a child growing up watching your father hit your mother, while still admiring aspects of your father. She hints at, but doesn’t develop, the emotional abuse the father uses to manipulate his younger son.

Split won several awards:

• The 2010 Silver Parents Choice Award

• The 2010 New Mexico State Award

• The 2011 International Reading Association Award

• The 2011 Cybils Award.

http://www.fwiwreviews.net/2010/10/before-split-blog-tour-guest-post-by.html#.X61YE2iwnIU