water sports

Chris Crutcher builds a story about challenging the status quo and finding the common humanity that unites those who believe they are alone in the world. The Tao, or T.J., grows up in Washington where racism dominates the town. T.J. attends Cutter High School where they are known for their respectable athletic program. One of the prize symbols to wear is an athletic jacket earned in a sport. Mike Baubour, a known enemy of T.J., tries to prevent Chris, less fortunate than many, from wearing his dead brother's letter jacket. T.J. fights to organize a male swim team. After he finds his teammates, including Chris, he sets up the criteria for earning a letter. This stirs up controversy among the Athletic Council, and finally come to a conclusion: each swimmer must better there time every meet to earn a letter. T.J.'s determination throughout the novel sets him above the pride of Cutter's athletic program and sets him in each teammates pride. T.J. is determined to achieve success for each one of his teammates, which would equal success to him. This book shows great teamwork, pride, and success when not everything comes easy.

It should come as no surprise that the newest book by Chris Crutcher, young adult literature titan, sets new ground as far as excellence is concerned.

In the recently released "Whale Talk," Crutcher does exactly what he has done before, in such books as "The Crazy Horse Electric Game," "Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes," and "Ironman."

Thank God. A true master realizes you don't mess with perfection.

On the surface, the story is simple. It's only upon further examination that the complexities are revealed.

The Tao Jones (call him TJ) is a high schooler of mixed Japanese and African-American race, the adopted son of a white couple composed of a sophisticated lawyer and a former trucker, and a gifted swimmer. When a controversy arises over letterman's jackets, TJ finds himself putting together a swim team right out of "The Far Side."

There's a kid whose mother's boyfriend wrapped his face in saran wrap as a baby to stop him from crying, and cut off the oxygen from his brain. There's also a guy who is just enormous and not built for the water, a virtual ghost who never says a word, an assistant coach who is living in a 24-hour gym to put his son through college, a studly guy who attracts the female crowd, an absolute brainiac, and a one-legged psychopath.

Intertwined with the humor that arises from such a situation is the story of Crutcher's characters' lives. TJ is at odds with a local maniac, who just happens to be the abusive white stepfather of a half-African-American little girl. When things get to be too much at home, TJ and his family take Heidi in, which doesn't please the nutcase.

Crutcher effortlessly bounces between swim team and home struggles, as the psycho grows more and more desperate to get his family back and the team must overcome their apparent loser status to become champions.

Sounds pretty cut and dry, doesn't it? You think you know what's going to happen, don't you? You're wrong.

Crutcher adeptly finds a balance between comedy and drama, and heroes and heartbreak in "Whale Talk," which has surpassed "Sarah Byrnes" as my favorite Crutcher tale. You will laugh one moment, and cry the next. (Especially during the Happy Meal scene between Heidi and TJ's father. That one's going to get talked about for ages to come.)

I said before that Crutcher is doing with "Whale Talk" exactly what he has always done in his other works. Which is not entirely true. One gets the idea that Crutcher is testing the waters with many aspects of the new novel, seven years in the writing. There are parts in "Whale Talk" that are more gruesome, more hilarious and more touching, and which reach new heights.

Other, lesser critics will call "Whale Talk" formulaic. But Crutcher knows better than to fix what's not broken.

Instead, he only plays with it to come up with his best offering yet. Crutcher went outside his comfort zone and outside the comfort zones of his readers.

The result is the equivalent of a chef taking an old favorite recipe, throwing in some new spices and whipping up a zesty new dish on the brink of perfection.

A good book rises above its own premise. Reading a short synopsis of this story without knowing anything about it beyond its plot could easily suggest to the average viewer that it's going to be awful. Think about it. A multi-racial protagonist and his motley crew of rag tag misfits puts together an unlikely swim team and everybody learns a little bit about what it's like to walk in another person's shoes. Bleaugh! That's the kind of After School Special plotting that can get a book seriously ignored by its intended audience. Now I had never read a Chris Crutcher book coming into this. Frankly, I know the man has a reputation for producing darned good books. Then I read "Whale Talk" and found, to my incredible relief, that this was not really a book about a swim team. It's about the circle of abuse and the amount of control an individual has over his or her own actions. It's about hurting other people and what the cost of that can be. In short, the book takes amazingly gigantic themes, renders them bite size, and gives them humanity and humor. It's the humor part that really impressed me.

T.J. Jones (actual name The Tao Jones... pronounce it, I dare you) is probably one of three people of color in his small Washington town. Adopted by his parents when he was a seriously abused toddler, T.J.'s a pretty well put together kid. That's probably in no small part due to his amazing mom and dad and his fantastic (some might say godlike) child therapist, Georgia. Which isn't to say that T.J.'s life is bereft of odd problems. His favorite teacher, Simet, is trying to lure T.J. into helping him start a school swim team. There are a couple problems with this plan. For one thing, T.J. refuses to join any organized sports. Cutter High School is run by and for its jocks. These jocks have been trying for years (unsuccessfully) to get T.J. onto one of their teams. Also, the school has no swimming pool. So T.J. isn't exactly thrilled about the idea of getting roped into this situation until he sees some of the local heavies beating up a mentally handicapped kid because he refuses to stop wearing his dead jock brother's letter jacket. Suddenly our hero has a mission, and the mission is clear. To create a swim team comprised of the kind of guys who otherwise could never be able to get involved in an organized sport. Even better, he's going to get each and every one of them a letter jacket.

This is just the barest of outlines describing this book. T.J. has a lot going on in his life and this includes his father's guilt about accidentally killing a toddler some thirty years before, a girl who tries continually to wash her skin clean of pigment, her psychotic father who is both a wife abuser and T.J.'s enemy, and a team that becomes closer as their problems become clearer. This is truly a book written about a man for men. Which isn't to say that girls won't love this tale, or that it's bereft of strong female characters. In fact, Crutcher is especially good at balancing women who've been abused in the past with their far stronger counterparts. No, when I say that this is a boy book, I'm referring to the fact that the central focus of this story rests squarely on the male swimming team. Sure, T.J. has a girlfriend but her presence in this story is probably just to prove to the viewer that he's a well adjusted guy with a well adjusted gal. Honestly, his relationship is not the focus of this tale. And that's kinda refreshing.

I think what I liked best about this book was that it recognized that behind every crazed idiot, there's a reason they act the way they do. Crutcher isn't the best young adult writer that knows about abuse (that honor belongs squarely to Alex Flinn) but he comes close. A person could learn more from reading this book about the cyclical nature of violence than they would from almost any other source. I'm praising the book beautifully, but it's not without the occasional flaw. Consider, for example, the character of Tay-Roy. This is a bodybuilder that joins the team and has, basically, no real personality. As far as I could determine, everything Tay-Roy does could have been accomplished by T.J. They're similar in every respect, except that Tay-Roy's slightly better looking. It's odd that Crutcher would have kept himself from omitting extraneous characters like this one, but as flaws go, this one's pretty minimal. The worst I can say is that it slightly derails the flow of the text. Big whoop.

What Crutcher has as a writer that puts him heads and tails above and beyond his peers (some, at any rate) is his sense of humor. You cannot dislike a book where the main character is named The Tao Jones. You just can't. I mentioned that I think that Alex Flinn is the all-powerful guru of abused teens, but what Crutcher doesn't have in superior knowledge he makes up for in funnies. I'm sick and tired of all the deadly depressing books out there. If every writer could fill their texts with half as much pleasurable writing as Mr. C, I'd have a heckuva harder time figuring out which book to read next. In the end, "Whale Talk" accomplishes that mighty difficult task of being a good book about a near impossible subject. Abuse. Whether or not you agree that Crutcher wrote about this topic with the correct amount of respect, you have to admit he wrote about it well. I tip my hat to the man who's books I will now have to devour one by one to satiate my now uncontrollable young adult literature craving. Such is life.