Below is Beverly Slapin's review of Joseph Bruchac's new book, Wolf Mark. It may not be reprinted elsewhere without her written permission. All rights reserved.
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Bruchac, Joseph,
Wolf Mark. Lee & Low, 2011,
grades 7-up
Joe Bruchac is
not yet known for his YA werewolf/vampire/espionage novels, but this talented
writer can sure pull off the genre(s). Middle readers who have the ability to
suspend disbelief will relate to the teen protagonist, an Abenaki wolf-boy with
multiple challenges. Such as doing well in school and winning over the girl he
really likes. Such as keeping himself from ripping out someone’s throat when
he’s annoyed or angry. Such as rescuing his father from a megalomaniac
gene-blending scientist who’s plotting to take over the world.
In Wolf Mark, everything is extreme: the
action, the gore, the metaphors, the allusions to uncontrolled corporate greed
that threatens to devour us all. And amidst all of this, Bruchac takes every
opportunity to bust stereotypes: about American Indians, about women, about
Muslims, about Russians, about werewolves and vampires.
In what may be a parody of badly
written YA novels featuring Indian protagonists who abruptly break the
narrative in order to insert for young non-Indian readers the supposedly
required ethnographic expositions, our Abenaki wolf-boy hero breaks his
narrative in order to posit a Freudian analysis of himself: “Was that
bloodthirsty, drooling monster a virtual manifestation of my own out-of-control
animal nature? Or an archetype? Not a creature threatening me from outside but
the beast within?” Or maybe it’s a parody of such paragons of horror as H.P.
Lovecraft.
Not dissimilar
to what Thomas King did in Green Grass,
Running Water, Bruchac places an allusion, covert or overt, on almost every
page. There are snippets from poems cleverly disguised as the narrator’s own
words and not-so-hidden references to “Little Shop of Horrors” and “Rocky and
Bullwinkle.” There’s a nod to the wisdom of Pogo. There’s a melding of Jack
Kerouac and Jack London, and of Lon Chaney and Dick Cheney. There are quotes
from Shakespeare, Stephen King and Joe Friday; lyrics from “The Wizard of Oz,”
Piledriver and Bob Dylan; and rewriting of some of the winning entrants from
the Bulwer-Lytton bad prose contests (my favorite being “a constellation of
zits”). And, in homage to Thomas King, Bruchac gives his name to the
protagonist’s father.
This reader
wildly careened between being breathlessly swept up in the action and
deflecting mixed metaphors and movie plots. And loved every minute.
The end, of
course, is entirely predictable, yet ultimately satisfying. Sort of like when
you’re sucking the last bit of vanilla ice cream down the bottom of a sugar
cone after you’ve bitten off the tip.
So, Joe, when’s
the sequel coming out and when do you expect Spielberg to call?
—Beverly Slapin
