I came to Kathryn Erskine's Quaking via VOYA's strong recommendation.
It is the story of Mattie, a troubled teen with a horrific past, who has bounced from foster home to foster home, till she arrives at the door of a young Quaker couple, Sam and Jessica Fox, and their developmentally disabled son,Rory. Prepared to resist all efforts to connect out of fears brought from her past, Mattie gradually finds herself moving closer and closer to becoming part of the Fox family, and in the process becomes involved in their religious and political interests.
This is a YA book with strong politics. I'm relatively new to the genre, but I'm under the impression that the strong political views of the book don't necessarily distinguish it in its field.
Beyond the strenght of the views, Erskine often resorts to sort of flat polemic. At times, the enemies of Matt and the Foxes seems to be kind of scarecrowish. The story at times would appear to have been conceived at the service of the views. This greatly undermines her attempt to positively present the Quaker point of view.
For instance, Mattie suffers under the arbitrary and cruel treatment of a rather blatantly prejudiced World Civlization teacher, Mr. Morehead, who is unrelentingly and gushingly patriotic. I'm sure that such folks exist, but I suspect they are a rarity. For the most parts, my impression is that schools are generally bound by all sorts of rules and regulations preventing a prejudice teacher from imposing his views on students in the way that Mr. Morehead does in the book.
Also, events are referred to as if they had taken place, were events covered by CNN, and were thus part of the public record. Yet I can find no record for such an event, or even anything vaguely related, actually having taken place. Admittedly, the story that Mattie comes across, a CNN news story about a peace demonstration in Washington D.C. that 'spirals out of control' and where a demonstrator, Sam Hobbs, dies, may e presented as a fictional conglomeration, or emblematic type of story, created by the writer to make a point. Yet, the story should bear soome passing resemblance to events that have actually occurred. I read and follow news. I searched a bit after reading this. I can find no record of a peace demonstration where protesters either died or were seriously injured. The fictional creation of such a story in a polemical novel, especially one intended for teens, is a bit dishonest.
Erskine's at times heavy-handed exposition of the Quaker position is unfortunate insofar as, other than these lapses, Erskine does a good job of examining the efficacy and meaning of the Foxs' views as they play out across two different but related situations: the current "war on terror" and an ongoing bullying situation at Mattie's high school. Simply drawing these two contexts together in the same story and thus comparing and contrasting them, letting them speak to each other, is a bold, original and provocative move. While such a bold thematic touch suffers by Erskine's use of unconcinvincing, straw-enemies, the ideas and reflection inspired by the relation inspired thought.
While it's politics may gain it attention, the book succeeds by virtue of the writing. Erskine writes with precision while never eschewing poetic turns. Her rendering of the domestic charms of the Foxes home continually warmed my heart. Matties journey toward trusting in a home is convincing and quite touching. Erskine does a fantastic job in setting up wonderfully poignant scenes. The book is much recommended for this domestic drama. I suspect the currency of the events presented and the strong political views of the author will render it popular and useful for discussion. However, I will remember the story of family that quietly stamps this fine novel in my memory.
