Seducing Poverty with Poetry
LYTAL, BENJAMIN
Seducing Poverty with Poetry The Book of Hard Things By Sue Halpern Farrar Straus Giroux. 240 pp. $22.00. Reviewed by Benjamin Lytal Contributor, Los Angeles "Times" Accomplished nonf...
...110 No copies of single issue published nearest to filing dale, 80 c Total Paid anoVor Requested Circulation (Sumofl5b...
...a copies of single issue published nearest lo filing date, 11,275 b. Paid and/or Requested Circulation: I PaioVrequested Outside-County Mail Subscriptions Stated on Form 3541 (include advertiser's proof and exchange copies) Average no copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 7,065...
...Since his ex, Crystal, prefers to keep him away from herself and their newborn, Cuzzy lives on the shore of a lake, waiting for the school bus to deliver a current flame, AmberRose, who steals food from the cafeteria for him...
...But The Book of Hard Things does not end with Cuzzy's dangling accusations...
...In Halpern's modern day performance of cultural insecurity, the poor are the real-life judges of poetry: If Cuzzy cannot be saved by Frost or Stevens, then something must be wrong with Frost and Stevens...
...10.255 d Free Distribution by Mail ISamples, complimentary, and other free)!]) Outside-Country as Stated on Form 3541 Averageno ofcopieseach issue dunng preceding 12 months, 350 No...
...Cuzzy Gage's sex appeal has already caused him several problems by the start of The Book of Hard Things...
...Barbara Shapiro...
...If Tracy leaves, Cuzzy must surely return to his old life...
...When they finally do begin to communicate, Cuzzy learns that Tracy is the literary executor for the estate of a young local grandee, Algernon Black, who was known, accurately, as "the fag...
...Date, September 30, 2003 I cemly thai all information furnished on this form is true and complete...
...He had heard about things like this...
...As punishment he is forced to drink a bottle of vodka, and the liquor causes him to pass out...
...The purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the exempt status for Federal income tax purposes has not changed during preceding 12 months 13...
...Tracy dares the ringleader of the boys to recite from a book by Auden and implies that he is illiterate...
...At first Tracy declined, but after happening upon the boy he warms to his mission...
...No copies of single issue published nearest to fflmg dale, 94% 16 PubbcaBon of StaKmern of Ownership will be nnnled m the September/October 2003 issue of this publication...
...From us,' he added, though he meant 'fromme.'" The tension between the privileged tutor and the underprivileged charge has received various treatments—in Hollywood movies, for instance, about white teachers in black neighborhoods...
...Cuzzy thought to point this out, but the car was traveling slowerthan their silence, which they couldn t seem to catch, and...
...The "hard things" that throughout the novel have been associated with poverty, work and ignorance finally display their own wasteful violence...
...New York...
...As Halpern's mule-like wonderboy drinks himself out of the story, her insecurity disappears and she builds an airtight miniplot in which Tracy's death is the inevitable result of a clash of cultures...
...and I5e | Average no copies each issue dunng preceding 12 months, S15 No copies of single issue published nearest to filing dale, 645...
...copies (Nel Press Run)· Average no...
...Tracy offers to take Cuzzy to New Zealand, but the boy thinks to himself, "It was easy to be generous when you were offering something the other person could not accept...
...12^80...
...No copies of single issue published nearest to filing dale, 7,050...
...Crystal did the same thing...
...No copies of single issue published nearest to filing dale, 1,805...
...they start playing a twisted game, tossing horseshoes at his face, and kill him...
...A local preacher had suggested that he befriend Cuzzy and try to help him out...
...2 Publication No 00286044...
...No copies of single issue published nearest to filing date...
...Average no copies each issue dunng preceding 12 months, 1,450 No copies of single issue published nearest 10 Tiling date, 1,320 4 Other Classes Mailed Through the USPS...
...Taunting him—"Do you like that, poetry boy, when I put my hands on your shoulders...
...Business Manager, or Owner...
...Contact Person- Barbara Shapiro...
...The offended boy dares him to kiss Tracy, but Cuzzy demurs...
...1,940...
...Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation I. Publication Title The New Leader...
...You can do whatever you want to do,'" he accuses Tracy...
...The possibly gay man, Tracy, offers Cuzzy a ride in his Porsche...
...That's what makes you different...
...copies of single issue published nearest filing date, 25 c. Free Distribution Outside the Mail (Carriers or other means...
...Publication Name The New Leader 14...
...In a culture war, the liberal side seeks to seduce, while reactionary elements attempt to stonewall, or destroy...
...copies of single issue published nearest to filing date...
...11 Known bondholders, mortgagees and other security holders owning or holding I per cent or more of total amount of bonds, mortjpges or other secunües None 12 Tax Status, For completion by nonprofit organizations authorized (0 mail at special rates...
...Aesop told the story of a fox who reckoned the grapes he couldn't reach were probably sour anyway, but Aesop was a slave and knew what it was like not to get what he needed...
...He felt the adrenaline charge through his veins, rushing through his heart and lungs and out to his fingers and toes like a hookand-ladder company responding to an alarm...
...2) ln-County as Stated on Form 3541...
...1), |2...
...160 OlOlher Classes Mailed Through the USPS· Average no of copies each issue dunng preceding 12 months, 25 No...
...It is titillating but absurd to literally fight a culture war...
...In this cruel twist on the homilies of literacy advocates, the pastoral hero turns his back on music...
...This guy was an odd duck...
...New York 10001 Managing Editor None 10 Owner (If the pubbcanon is owned by a corporanon, give the name and address of the corporation immediately followed by Ihe name and addresses of all stockholders owning or holding I percent or more of the total amount of stock...
...One day, while he is loitering at the local gas station, a man comes out of the bathroom...
...The crucial moment hinges on rejection, as the student accuses the teacher of condescension, hubris and naïvet...
...Business Manager...
...Average no copies each issue dunng preceding 12 months, 170 No copies of single issue published nearest filing date...
...But the boy is "kick-the-dog-angry...
...Here was the poem, laid out before him...
...New York 10001 7B...
...and (4): Average no copies each issue dunng preceding 12 months, 10,565...
...copies each issue during preceding 12 months...
...Telephone...
...To their host's dismay, they bring methamphetamines, and the night deteriorates into a meanspirited game of truth or dare...
...If owned by a partnership or other unincorporated Firm, give rts names and address as well as that of each individual owner...
...Her novel may be read as a book about soft things that gravitate toward hard things—Algernon Black to ethnomusicology, Tracy and poetry to Cuzzy...
...2. Paid ln-County Subscriptions stated on Form 3541 (Include advertisers' proof copies and exchange copies)- Average no, copies each issue during preceding 12 months...
...The older man wants to throw Cuzzy a lifeline, but he also requires the youth's approval...
...The specter of class difference has reared its head, and Cuzzy suspects that Tracy's friendship is no more than a tease...
...Average no...
...New York, New York 10001...
...New York...
...10,900 h Copies not Distributed: Average no copies each issue during preceding 12 months, 900 No copies of single issue published nearest lo filing dale, 375 l Total (Sum of 15g...
...He asks Cuzzy to assist him in exchange for room and board, by organizing some of Black's papers, and is disappointed by the boy's indifference: "Tracy sighed...
...He is a semi-wild stud whose misfortunes do not seem to stick to him, and a boy any mother would love, no matter what he did to her daughter...
...In the car the boy is taciturn, increasingly suspicious of Tracy's fey generosity, but Halpern is careful to foreshadow friendship in recording his thoughts...
...Tracy's estimation of poetry may have trembled before Cuzzy's indifference, but his martyrdom is patently triumphant over cinematic hate crimes...
...For the job.' "'What job?' It was like they were having a fight, but Cuzzy couldn't figure out what it was about...
...3 Sales Through Dealers and Gamers, Streel \%idors, Counter Sales, and Other Non-USPS Paid Distribution...
...As Cuzzy hears of this association, his Povertybred homophobia causes an allergic reaction, and Halpern's metaphors lurch to the scene: "Cuzzy took it as a sucker punch right between the ribs...
...He is "in his 30s, with short, curly black hair, poodle hair, Cuzzy thought, and oddly translucent skin...
...150 f. Total Free Distribution (Sum of 15d...
...Average no copies each issue during preceding 12 months...
...Shelley Appleion, President, 275 Seventh Avenue...
...7 Complele mailing address of known office of publication (riot pnnterl 275 Seventh Avenue...
...A virtual orphan, he has been kicked out of his older cousin's household for sleeping with his host's 15-year-old girlfriend...
...g. Total Distribution (Sum of 15c and I5f) Average no copies each issue during preceding 12 months...
...felt like a crevasse that needed ropes and ladders to cross...
...17 Signature and Title of Editor, Publisher...
...Cuzzy's friends tease him and Tracy about their supposed liaison...
...Romanticizing a defeatist student, as Halpern does, is a prickly, backhanded conceit...
...Whether the student assumes the burdens of his new education or shrinks bitterly into ignorance is a matter of suspense...
...For Cuzzy, rhythm is on the side of cosmopolitan culture—Algernon Black was an ethnomusicologist—and by the end of the novel Cuzzy is fairly acquainted with his tapes and papers: "So he had listened to music from Burkina Fasso...
...Extent and nature of circulation, a. Total no...
...just thought maybe you'd show more enthusiasm.' "'For what?' Cuzzy was pissed...
...But could a boy from Poverty react any other way...
...Off handmetaphors, a technique she leans on too heavily, arrive in an almost nonsensical flurry...
...Reviewed by Benjamin Lytal Contributor, Los Angeles "Times" Accomplished nonf iction author Sue Halpern's first novel concerns a culture war triggered by a stranger's attempt to reverse the downward spiral of a poor high school dropout...
...The local gossips smell a homosexual, and Halpern's interest in her protagonist betrays an erotic idealization of Poverty, the mirthless white trash town where the novel is set...
...Issue Dale for Circulation Data Below September/October3003 15...
...Ine, 275 Seventh Avenue...
...That Halpern locates her savage in an old American small town full of poor white people is not the least of the obstacles she erects in Cuzzy's path toward civilization...
...Bimonthly 5. Number of issues published annually 6 6. Annual Subscription Price S42 00...
...and h)Average no copies each issue dunng preceding 12 months, 12,280 No copies of smglc issue published nearest lo filing dale, 11275 jPercent Paid anoVor Requested Circulation (15c/15g ? 100...
...This series of events makes for excruciating reading...
...And he would be able to hold it in contempt...
...He was going to be pushing snow from one side of the road to the other, 3 a.m., with the river catching the moon and carrying the light downstream, and the words 'Regard now the sloping, mountainous rocks and the river that batters its way over stones' would come into his head like the fortune on a Magic 8-ball...
...During the ride, the boy notices some trees, "their top leaves tipped red, like matches...
...copies each issue dunng preceding 12 months, 270 No copies of single issue published nearest filing dale...
...So he had read 'The Snow Man.' So he had read 'Dry Loaf So he had absorbed those rhythms, too...
...So he had absorbed those rhythms...
...If not owned by a corporation, give the names and addresses of the individual owners...
...Tracy throws a surprise birthday party for the boy, inviting some of his old friends from town...
...Halpern is dazzled by dull rocks...
...A guy lured another guy someplace and did things to him...
...Growing violently high, the boys bind him to a chair, with his forearms propped up like goal posts...
...212-807-8240 8. Complele mailing address of headquarters or general business office of publisher (not printer): 275 Seventh Avenue, New York, New York 10001 9 Full names and complete mailing addresses of publisher, editor, and managing editor Publisher Araencan Labor Conference on International Affairs, Ine, 275 Seventh Avenue, New York, New York 10001 Editor Myron Kolatch, 275 Seventh Avenue, New York...
...He returns their taunts, asking one of the boys if he was guilty of an old incest charge...
...When Tracy wins a Fulbright to teach in New Zealand, he presents Cuzzy with a book of Wallace Stevens poems...
...She employs them in a gimmick, beginning each chapter with a ponderous epigram about slate, ash or schist...
...If the publication is published by a nonprofit organization, give its name and address) Full name American Labor Conference on International Affaire...
...Cuzzy does not at first share Tracy's understanding of work as opportunity, but eventually he grows quite comfortable with his new life and its refined trimmings...
...New York 10001...
...He is a good Samaritan, albeit a jealous one...
...Milchel Levi las, Secretary, 275 Seventh Avenue, New York, New York 10001...
...4. Issue Frequency...
...It smacks of primitivism: Western tradition forsaken for the rhythms of the tribal drum pit...
...Pastoral poetry, in which aristocrats wrote about shepherds, was composed to enforce the notion that the poor were somehow lucky to be that way...
...3 Filing Dale September 30, 2003...
...Most authors of such stories are quite literate and creative—closer to Tracy than to Cuzzy—so their sympathy for resigning heroes seems prematurely forgiving...
...He slowly discovers his own talents and forms vague ambitions for the future...
...Average no copies each issue during proceeding 12 months, 93...
...Halpern has Cuzzy further observe (in case we didn't get it), that the stranger was quite tall, but "his features were delicate and elfin, especially his nose, which was small for his face and ended uphill, not down...
...He was going to get a job moving earth...
...Although it turns out Tracy is not himself a homosexual, he continues to seduce Cuzzy by inviting him into Black's home, convincing him to stay the night, and offering him a job in the morning...
...11.380 No copies of single issue published nearest to filing dale...
Vol. 86 • September 2003 • No. 5
