Kayla Allen

I'm late this year in commenting on Freedom to Read Week, which concluded at the weekend. Though of course, I personally believe that EVERY week should be Freedom to Read Week.

In fact, I did a couple of things to commemorate the week.

First, I watched a documentary called The Librarians on the PBS show Independent Lens:

https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/the-librarians/

It mainly focused on school libraries in the U.S. and predictably, a large proportion of the contentious books concerned LGBTQ+ young people. Right-wing fundamentalist parents' groups (including, or perhaps especially parents of kids who were gay, questioning, gender-fluid etc.) compiled a long list of books that they demanded be immediately withdrawn from libraries and school curricula in their communities (mostly school libraries, although I seem to recall some public libraries were also targeted). Librarians, teachers and other concerned citizens who dared to challenge the challengers faced serious consequences.

Nothing new there, I guess. And certainly Canadian libraries are by no means immune to this sort of nonsense.

Anyway, one of the challenged books they described piqued my interest: Lawn Boy, by Jonathan Evison. I put a hold on it at my friendly local public library and just a day or two later, got the notification that I could come and pick it up.

Even though the book had sounded intriguing, my expectations for it weren't really super-high. I was envisioning something like a YA novel, kid comes out as gay, gets disowned by parents, finds himself and comes into his own with his new circle of friends and associates, you know the sort of thing. But what I got was much more than that.

Mike Muñoz is a vaguely white-looking kid with a Hispanic surname who recently finished high school and does various short-term menial jobs when he can get work at all. He lives with his mother and stepdad no. 3 and his obese and intellectually challenged older brother. Though he seemingly has no marketable skills, his passion is landscaping and especially topiary. Basically a starving artist.

But what really makes this book stand out for me is Evison's gift for characterization and getting into other people's skin, even those who are nothing like oneself. It's all about the assumptions we make about other people and the assumptions they make about us, most of which may be quite erroneous. And I'm not just (nor even primarily) talking about assumptions about sexuality and gender identity: I'm talking cultural background, social class & living conditions, race, age, occupation, political orientation ... in short, just about every demographic detail you can think of.

There's some great dialogue in the book and a lot of humour too. The main characters are basically good people. Flawed, unquestionably, but they look out for each other. There's basically a happy ending, though not saccharin happily-ever-after. Mike Muñoz has found his tribe.

I also found the author's essay at the end, which he entitles The Great American Landscaping Novel, quite fascinating. While Evison is quite prolific, this novel seems to have been his passion project.

I'm now reading Evison's most recent (c2025) novel, The Heart of Winter. It's much more ambitious than Lawn Boy, moving back and forth through various time periods. Lawn Boy did that to a degree, but since the main character is only 22 years old, there's far less time to revisit! The Heart of Winter concerns an elderly couple - Abe is 90 and Ruth 87 - and the book covers a span of 70+ years from when they first met in 1953 at the University of Washington, he a business admin major who's politically conservative and she a staunch feminist and artsy type who loves poetry, through to 2024 when they're parents, grandparents and great-grandparents and she becomes seriously ill. Lots of ups and downs and adjustments and re-re-re-adjustments they have to make in their relationship and in their respective roles are of course necessitated.

I'm finding Heart of Winter very interesting too and it's still very much informed by Evison's gift for getting inside his characters' skins. But it's not such a light or entertaining read as Lawn Boy. There's far less humour and far more pathos. As for historical accuracy, I'm not nearly as up on U.S. history and politics as most of his readers probably would be; still, in terms of the international scene I did do a double-take when Ruth and Abe were discussing the Berlin Wall. In 1953?!

OK, so let's put Evison and his books aside for a moment. As I observed above, Canadian libraries of all kinds have been subject to book banning too. And librarian banning.

This latest move relates to librarians in federal prisons. And to CEGEP programs in Quebec-based federal prisons. Both of which are being eliminated. A few years ago at an Ex Libris Association annual conference, I listened to a very moving presentation by a wrongly-convicted long-time prisoner, who said that the prison library was pretty much the only thing that made his incarceration endurable. Prison conditions in general are of course a whole other kettle of stinky fish but even leaving aside the wrongfully convicted, I would note that a whole lot of prisoners are just awaiting trial for months or years on end and have not been found guilty of any crime.

For those who are interested, here's a link to a petition you can sign:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScqtBD2prjrQ4ud8bi9LYRhO7XYV9H7WrCYTgIjtN4C-Ev4mw/viewform