Thirteen-year-old Flutie lives on the edge of an enormous quiet that she wants to transcend. Her family's life in Western Oklahoma, her father's job repairing old cars and tractors, her brother's betrayal, and her mother's indifference are all parts of a story Flutie wants to tell if she can just find the words. In a library book, Flutie reads the myth of Philomela, whose tongue was cut out by her sister's husband so she cannot tell that he raped her. As Flutie faces the poverty of the the land and the turmoil of her family, she feels she is also without a tongue. She is not just afraid to speak, she is afraid of being. She especially fears her own imagination which produces visions of deer and a spirit woman that she doesn't understand. For a time, Flutie loses herself in drinking and drugs and a friendship that turns oppressive. But through her inner resources and the influence of a kind neighbor, she claims her own voice.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
In Glancy's third novel (following Pushing the Bear, LJ 7/96), we meet Flutie Moses, a Native American girl growing up in Western Oklahoma who, in a reflection of the frustration around her, is so shy that she cannot speak. Her father and her brother, Franklin, operate a dead-end business. Both Franklin and their mother spend time in jail. In her adolescent years, Flutie turns to drugs and alcohol to escape both her family's turmoil and poverty and her visions of deer and spirit women. Through a library book, Flutie finds strength from the tale of Philomela, whose tongue is cut out by her sister's husband so that she cannot tell he raped her. Flutie eventually gains control of the power of speech and of her own life, graduating from high school and going on to college. Glancy's conservative prose spins a story of great emotional honesty and power. Highly recommended for all collections.?Carolyn Ellis Gonzalez, Univ. of Texas at San Antonio Lib.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
With lyrical precision, poet and novelist Glancy limns the life of a girl who lives in a dusty Oklahoma backwater, where the time is now but could be almost any decade this century. Flutie goes from 13 to 20 in these pages, struggling with her own fierce silence. She wants to hear the stories of her father's Cherokee and her mother's German past; she sees the physical stories her angry brother Franklin can only tell with his body and his devotion to cars; she feels that every stone in her arid landscape has a tale to tell. But Flutie's throat fills with saltwater--or hot lava--when she tries to speak in class or in front of anyone she's not close to. Her mother and father, her old neighbors Luther and Ruther, her brother and his two wives, and the boy who loves her are each drawn like boulders lit by lightning, all angles and deep shadows. Flutie begins to find her own words in the same fits and starts that she begins to attend college, studying geology: the rocks and their spirits. This quite beautiful novel proves unexpectedly moving in the ways Glancy finds to write the sounds of silence. GraceAnne A. DeCandido
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
FLUTIE is a wonderful narrative about coming of age.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Flutie: A Novel (Hardcover)
Flutie is shy, pathologically shy, but her voice emerges in the narrative that emerges from her thoughts, in fits and starts, just as her life emerges in fits and starts. We see her in these few pages go from 13 to 20, to being unable to speak in class to trying. Her family is as rich and real as the scenes painted by her imagination, so the story becomes not only a personal one but also a story about people stuck for different reasons in western Oklahoma. Flutie's shyness could be a metaphor for the silencing of her people. The book is like poetry, every word in place and evocative of the interior and geographical landscape of Flutie's life. We see a debt to her indigenous ancestors and a debt to her parents. The narrative does seem to end too quickly, with a decision that seems to come without much preparation, as if it is too pat and too expected for what has come before. But I read that last few pages a few times to try to reconcile myself with the ending, and I still liked the book. It offers a wonderful, rich story.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Flutie Comes of Age,
By
This review is from: Flutie: A Novel (Hardcover)
The way Flutie copes with the poverty & turmoil of herfamily is in ever-increasing silence. She is not only afraid to speak,she is afraid of being. As I read I wondered if I was supposed to like this book, this heroine, this mute misery. I often had to re-read sections to make sense of it & sometimes that sense was horrible. Partly because of Flutie's inarticulateness, partly because of her raw-boned neediness, partly because of her hidden voice. This is a devastating coming-of-age of one very lost girl stumbling toward womanhood. Worth the effort!...
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Uhm Yeah So...,
This review is from: Flutie: a novel (Paperback)
I, much like Flutie, have no words. I have no idea what I just read!
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