American Youth by Phil Lamarche

I've read two essential yet vastly different American novels lately, American Youth by Phil Lamarche and Wounded by Percival Everett. I pull Everett's novel into this piece solely because both books are stellar examples of what American fiction looks like today. Both are stark and brutal. One tangent in recent fiction advocates simplicity and this works especially well for fiction in this country because I believe we have a desire to pull back from it all and take a deep breath. American Youth goes there. Lamarche demonstrates a unique ability to talk about essentially every small town in America and one huge problem. He links the endemic gun control argument to the specific dynamics of a financially depressed small town. No matter where we are, what city we live in, gun violence affects us all, but there is a difference in how it affects rural populations. Lamarche captures this beautifully and unapologetically. After the shooting the main character, already unintentially flawed by his landscape, becomes desperate. What Lamarche does masterfully is mirror this desperation to the landscape and what arrives for the reader is a reminder of all the hidden places in this country and in our hearts.

For more on my take of Wounded, read the next blog post...