How dare you take advantage of me in my vulnerable state? Here I am, sitting at home, tired, achy, taking a sick day because brain and body won’t work, and I innocently finished reading “The Boy with a Torn Hat.”

I thought this would be easy reading–a boy-book surely, full of beer and pissing rain and chasing skirts and the antics of youth. And there you go seeping in between the cracks of my carefully erected armor with insidious poignancy, exposing all the uncertainty and longing and the suffering borne of being torn in too many directions–exposing what it means to be humanly afraid, to hurt someone you love, to be victim to your own weaknesses.

I did not know how to start. How to tell you how good “The Boy with a Torn Hat” is. [Caution, spoilers] I was leaking tears for the last few chapters at the suffering, the betrayal, and the redemption. But it is not a tragedy. The book makes mention of a Hollywood ending. I did not find that moment so. It would never make it in a Hollywood script without being blown out of proportion with a man-to-man battle. It’s triumph was one of the human spirit. The redemption of having one clear moment where one small act makes a giant difference to oneself and breaks the mold was the crowning touch. How many of those moments do some of us pass up, locked in insecurity, ignorance, or fear? You made up for all of those moments for all of us.

I was a bit misled (I always read that word ‘migh-zled’) at first by the light humor of our blundering protagonist. I thought of the wit as a writing style; instead, it was a social coping mechanism, a mask for angst. His stumbling ways, his botched attempts at art and love, his inability to say something substantive to at least one of his paramours, establish him as an Everyman early on. I was embarrassed and chagrined for him, and with him, as his misadventures reminded me of uncomfortable past moments of my own.

I cringed and berated him for his betrayal of Renate, while realizing that this trip to “the dark side,” was perhaps the first thing he’d made a definitive stand about. He willfully created an alter ego to take unearned credit, just to get something he wanted–to know how it felt to have someone admire his work, and by extension, to admire him. I was relieved that he was found out so early, however painful that exposure, and I felt vindicated in the end when he learns how to take positive action for the benefit of self and others.

Despite this human flaw, this selfish and flagrant succumbing to temptation, despite his constant and desperately awkward attempts to get laid, he still emerges the hero when he glimpses desire for love of another kind. His tenderness toward Sasha and his desire to paint for the blind, for the heart, overcome the constant nagging of young male hormones that pervades his existence. When circumstances push him toward maturity, he accepts the ride with insight and grace.

There are so many other things for which to commend the book–the subtle weaving of the plot around Arthur McBride, the symbolism of the portrait of the boy as icon of the innocence and flaws of so many of the characters, the creation of real villains, the uplifting of spirit when the entire busker community comes together to support Jimmy, the finding of Jimmy’s voice alone without Arthur. There are many instances of admirable wordsmithy (my word) that I marked in the margins–I do not usually mark up books.

It is interesting that women don’t fare so well in the book. While Jimmy, Morgan, Dieter, and Tobias find themselves in larger or smaller ways, Hannah remains frozen in childhood, Sabrina remains a resentful mom, Renate chooses the sadist, and Lola goes to look for one. Still, I have known them and been some of them, so it is a fair depiction. I just wanted more for at least one of them.

I am so happy you gave me a copy of your book, Thornton. But how dare you write and touch the heart so deeply.

–
Your fan,
Diana

P.S. I wrote this today, immediately after reading Thornton Sully’s novel, “The Boy with a Torn Hat.”