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When
a person reaches adolescence, he struggles to be heard. But
what if a person had no way to do that? That's just one of
the themes in By George, the second novel by Wesley
Stace (also known as singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding).
Two boys named George—one human and one made of wood—both
narrate this lyrical, sweet, and humorous fish-out-of-water
tale of family secrets, desire, and the longing to be heard
at all costs. Though their voices are distinctly different,
their stories are the same. By George is a clever and
touching book with fully realized characters that will stay
with the reader long after they've finished the story.
George
Fisher, the 11-year-old human boy, is sent away to an exclusive
all-male boarding school called Upsides, away from his charmingly
freakish, mostly-female family. His mother, Frankie, is a
beautiful pixie of a woman, who often plays young boys in
theater productions and has sacrificed her personal life for
her love of theater. His grandmother, Queenie, tries to retain
a semblance of normalcy in the household.
But the
puppet-master is the family matriarch, Evangeline, known professionally
as Echo Endor, a famous ventriloquist in the vaudeville era
who entertained the hoi polloi and royalty alike with her
dummy Narcissus. Echo has carefully orchestrated the lives
of every member of her family, from her son Joe's career as
a ventriloquist, to Joe's marriage to the blunt Queenie, to
Frankie's life as an actress, to great-grandson George's entry
into the boarding school.
George
Fisher's story is braided with wooden George's story, which
begins back in the 1930s when the dummy was created. Like
George Fisher, wooden George is controlled by others—in
his case, Joe "King" Fisher, son of the famous Echo Endor.
Joe, in turn, is controlled by Echo, who has George made for
him, and insists that she follow her in the family business,
despite his disinclination towards ventriloquism. Echo also
foists a sweet but slightly dull young lady on Joe: Queenie,
who also has an interest in ventriloquism. But Joe and Queenie
don't last very long. After the birth of their first daughter,
Frankie, Joe and George begin a successful career entertaining
the British troops during World War II, and the family never
sees Joe again. Readers learn about Joe's life, his struggles
with his mother, his success in Europe, and his life away
from his family through wooden George's erudite secret diaries.
Ironically,
wooden George is the more loquacious of the two Georges, and
his sections are written in first person, while George Fisher's
passages are in the third person, echoing the powerlessness
Fisher feels in his own life. Even what he thinks are original
thoughts—like studying voice-throwing—come from
subtle suggestions from great-grandmother Echo. It's not until
he encounters the original George that Fisher comes into his
own, and his narrative becomes first person.
Stace
writes evocatively of both 1930s and 1970s England and its
characters, and he makes readers feel a sense of place and
fellowship with the Georges that would be lost on a lesser
writer. Stace only barely describes Upsides (some of the bathrooms
have no doors, the library is in disarray), leaving the reader
to fill in their idea of an all-boys boarding school and allowing
Stace more space to develop his memorable characters, such
as Donald, the sensitive school groundskeeper. Wooden George—who
hates the term "dummy"—speaks in a very ornate, overblown
style, very much in the way one might hear stereotypical self-important
actors speak. When describing being examined by his creator,
he says, "Brandished by my spine, I was scrutinized in natural
and institutional light."
But what
really propels this book is the compelling family drama, riddled
with secrets and mysteries so deep that, each time one secret
is revealed, the story becomes even more mysterious. George
Fisher's devotion to his mother is touching, but it almost
leads him to the same trap his grandfather fell into, putting
aside his own desires to please Frankie.
Stace's
characters, even the wooden ones, are so lively that it's
easy to think of them all as real people. Readers looking
for a smart, interesting and well-crafted story would be remiss
in not picking up this book.
(September,
2007)
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