Customer Reviews

Flutie: A Novel

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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.

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!...

I, much like Flutie, have no words. I have no idea what I just read!