Book: Baby Be-Bop

I finished reading the book Baby Be-Bop, by Francesca Lia Block. This book came to my attention thanks to the West Bend Citizens for Safe Libraries, and more specifically to the Christian Civil Liberties Union, who are suing for the right to burn or otherwise destroy the West Bend Community Memorial Library's copy of it. They describe it as “explicitly vulgar, racial, and anti-Christian".

Generally speaking, I find if something pisses off the Christ-i-ain'ts this much, it's worth a read.

To quote this article from the ALA, "“the plaintiffs, all of whom are elderly, claim their mental and emotional well-being was damaged by this book at the library,” specifically because Baby Be-Bop contains the “n” word and derogatory sexual and political epithets that can incite violence and “put one’s life in possible jeopardy, adults and children alike.”"

So, as I was reading, I marked points I noticed that included the 'n' word and derogatory sexual and political epithets.

On page 16, Pup is admiring Dirk's portrait of Jimi Hendrix and says ' "My mom went out with this gross trucker guy once," Pup told him. "He saw the Jimi poster in my room and goes, 'That nigger looks like he's got a mouth full of cum.' I wanted to kill him. I told my mom I would if she didn't stop seeing him."

On page 42, a cameo character says "If you ask me all those fags are going to die out."

On page 45, Dirk calls a boy with a swastika tattooed on his neck a "fascist skinhead", and on the same page the skinhead called him a "faggot".

I think that's it. An insult in dialog may have slipped by me, but if so I feel quite certain in saying it's in the same vein as the others.

The "vulgar" complaint I can understand, knowing the very strict definition of vulgar these sorts of groups have. There is some cursing, and there are mentions of sex. Nothing very explicit, but you know, sex exists.

Racial I don't get at all. Honestly, 'racial'? What does that even mean? My dictionary says "of, relating to, or based on race; occurring between races." Is this supposed to be good? Bad? Indifferent? In any event, it doesn't apply, because everyone in the book is white. It's actually kind of funny how white the book is. Well, I guess technically Dirk's great-grandfather may have been Middle Eastern. (OMG! Miscegenation!) They mention Martin Luther King Jr's assassination as Uber Bad Thing a couple of times.
Racial. Hmm.

And of course anti-Christian only in the sense of "not blatantly fundamentalist Christian". Is it just me, or at this point does that almost go without saying? When was the last time you saw/read/experience something that was accused of being "anti-Christian" and that actually was by any reasonable definition? Or even if you squint? Somehow to these groups, if it doesn't say all Christians everywhere are perfect and wonderful and covered with rainbows and kittens, it is "anti-Christian". And they wonder why they aren't taken seriously.

Right now, the statement that "Baby Be-Bop contains the “n” word and derogatory sexual and political epithets that can incite violence and “put one’s life in possible jeopardy, adults and children alike.”" amuses me because it's so... lawyerly. Technically it's correct. In the wrong circumstances, being called a skinhead or a faggot can incite violence and/or put someone's life in danger. The book isn't inciting violence or danger, but the statement doesn't say that it is. I wonder if the actual legal document is phrased that way.

In the meantime, I'm just going to close my eyes and imagine the grand jury called together to determine if the book is obscene and if making it available should be a hate crime. I'm imagining those people reading the book, and then beating all four plaintiffs and especially their lawyer about the head and shoulders with it for wasting their time with such stupid, even ludicrous, complaints. But then thanking them for the reading recommendation.
Ahh....

Now, on to my opinions of the book itself. Now, given how I learned about it, naturally I have not read any other of the Dangerous Angels series nor was I actually aware that it was part of a series when I started. I'm coming at it completely cold, viewing it as a stand-alone.

Frankly, I think this book was wonderful. I'm tempted to buy myself a copy, and it is very rare for me to reread fiction, so I think this is saying something.

It is about a young man coming to terms with his homosexuality in the late 1970s/early 1980s, but it is also about people and their stories. How everyone has a story, and how freeing it is to share a story and how destructive it is to silence a story. If you'll allow me to quote a passage:

"Think about the word destroy. Do you know what it is? De-story. Destroy. Destory. You see. And restore. That's re-story. Do you know that only two things have been proven to help survivors of the Holocaust? Massage is one. Telling their story is another. Being touched and touching. Telling your story is touching. It sets you free."

Doesn't that make the request to destroy this book all the more sad, and all the more ironic?

I was warned going in that the author had a "twee writing style". I'll admit that my reaction was "what does that even mean?" Then I started and oh, that's a twee writing style.

The start of the book is written in the way you'd expect a book for beginning, elementary-age readers to be, even though the intended audience is older. Very simple, short sentences, very concrete. But it doesn't stay that way. The storytelling subtly changes with the events of the story. At first, it's reflecting Dirk's life. It's very black and white, there's no depth to it, "There's something wrong with me; I want to be normal, and if I can't have that, I want to die." Later during dream sequences it gets more flowery and symbolic; it changes depending on the character in the focus. Then at the end the style is more down to earth, but more grown up. It isn't the choppy simple elementary-school style any more.

I thought that was very stylish.

It's a character driven story, and the characters were great. It's a very short book (just over 100 pages), so it's very pared down, but I still found them very believable. I could really feel for Dirk, really experience what he was going through. I do wish Just Silver had gotten to share her story, but I guess you can't have everything.

So, in summary, my opinion: Go read it. Now. Close the browser and go to your local library or bookstore and get a copy. Reading it is an excellent use of two hours of your life.
But, however tempting it may be, don't actually use it to beat a bigot about the head and shoulders when you're done. It's too good of a book for that.