I think you mean Deerskin?

I'm trying to remember when I first read it, I think I was in my teens. It is a very raw book but I certainly wouldn't have issues with a teenager reading it; it's sensitively handled and the main focus is on the recovery of the heroine rather than the gratuitous exploration of rape.

The book was definitely released at a time before YA was so defined, though, and I can see some librarians possibly looking askance at it.

Thanks for that Tansy - I was looking right at it when I typed that and I read the book (ages ago but still).

No idea why I spaced on it.

My question isn't so much about how it was regarded when it was first published (YA or not) but how it (and other books on this subject) are regarded now. As enlightened as we are these days about the difficulties facing teens, is a book like this really not for YAs?

Brilliant.

Well, and it's kind of a moot point when one of the Printz honor books -- Tender Morsels -- deals so explicitly with the father raping the daughter and getting her pregnant (more than once) right from the beginning, in harrowing, frank yet lush language.

I have heard that rape and incest are among the things that can cause a book to be elevatd from middle grade to YA, so perhaps she was just meaning it's not for young kids bud didn't stop to explain?

Well, no, her language is pretty clear, isn't it? Looking at it again. I suspect a lot of teens read Deerskin, and far more explicit books -- and for all the reasons you say, they should.

You're right about Tender Morsels Gwenda and honestly I was shocked to see it selected as an honor because Margo Lanagan definitely pulls no punches with that one. The choice defies standard YA logic although several of this year's choices were a bit different (Graveyard Book caught most of us off guard I think although it deserves the selection.)

In a way this is back to Lanagan's short story "The Goosle" which is such a brutal and explicit retelling of "Hansel and Gretel". That big furor over it being seen as a YA story (it's published in an adult antho) missed the very big point that in child rape there is a child involved. Would it be wrong for a teenager to read that story?

The lines are always drawn somewhere, I just wonder how they get there. (And no - for anyone who might think otherwise - I'm not suggesting these books for children as there has to be a level of understanding on the part of the reader that likely would come only in the teen years.)

I read Deerskin as a teen (I think I found it in the adult fiction section of my library) and was completely disturbed by it. But on the other hand, if someone had told me I couldn't read it, after loving McKinley's books for younger readers, I would have been offended. And I think more worldly teens wouldn't have found it as shocking as I did. It is interesting to wonder if it would be marketed as YA if it was published now. I think, like Tender Morsels, you could publish it in either category.

Hi Colleen,
My Google Alert sent me over here for this one, although I'm a regular reader/lurker.

I'd have to disagree that I 'pull no punches' in Tender Morsels, when it comes to depicting the rape and incest. I was very conscious that this book would likely be sold as a YA novel, for one thing. And I didn't want the rape and incest to take over the story, which was more about people's ideas of what heaven might consist of. In order to get Liga into heaven, I had to have things happen to her that everyone would agree warranted her being given a break.

The fact that rape and incest happen to Liga is quite hard to take, I'll admit. But I restricted graphic description of confronting events to the miscarriages Liga underwent - and during the first one, she didn't even realise it was a miscarriage; it just seemed to be her body in revolt. The second miscarriage is when she works out what's happening, and then, you're right, it's pretty grim when she sees the dead child. It's pretty clear what's happened, to any reader.

But you'll find no more than the fumbling of a breast depicted of the incest, and that's in retrospect, after Liga's father is dead. And the rape scene cuts out as the boys are breaking into Liga's house, and the next scene takes up when Liga goes down to the brook to wash. I was very careful not to unbalance the story with detail about those assaults, because - as reactions have shown - the very fact of the incest and rape is quite confronting enough (when a reader is savvy enough to interpret the clues), without us having to live through every gesture and emotion of the events.

Likewise the sodomy at the end would be, I would think, almost invisible to readers who don't know about such things, although it's clear enough that the cloth-men are ganging up on Liga's rapists and exacting vengeance for whatever crime was committed on her, back in the early pages of the book.

Younger readers whose knowledge of the world doesn't extend to the technicalities of rape/incest/sodomy can probably tell that something horrible's going on, but they don't have to go through it with Liga. Readers with wider knowledge pick up all the clues, and because most of the writing about the other events is so detailed, they sometimes assume that I've included scenes which in fact I've purposely left out.

I will agree that it's not an easy book, but some of the hardest things are really only alluded to, not described. The context is there from which the acts can be inferred, but the acts themselves are kept pretty well off-stage.

I think it's particularly important for adult readers of Tender Morsels, who do have the worldly knowledge to interpret all the clues, to distinguish between what I have actually depicted in the book and what they themselves are bringing to the reading of it.

Best wishes,
Margo.

Hello Margo!

I did not mean in my comment that you graphically depicted anything in Tender Morsels and I'm sorry if that is how it reads. I meant that you pulled no punches as far as content as in something bad does happen and there are ramifications of that badness. It's not a weak sort of badness that you write about, but a powerful one that results in many changes for the main character.

My argument in this entire post is less about the language used to describe rape or other violent events in stories but the very notion that books containing those acts at all as committed against or among teens should not be considered valuable and appropriate reading material for teens. The specifics of how you write about these acts in your book is not what I was driving at in my comment, but rather that they are present at all in the plot and thus the significance of the book to teens overall because of that.

You kind of make my point in your final paragraph - that adults need to remember to read the books from a teen perspective and not their own but keep in mind that many teens will have undergone no small measure of little horrors in their lives.

Of course reading as a teen isn't easy when you aren't one...but that is another whole subject.

Hey Margo --

Congrats again on the Printz honor. In my opinion, Tender Morsels is exactly the kind of beautiful, challenging book that teens need more of. (Just as Octavian is.) The thought you clearly put into exactly how much to depict and how much to suggest is very evident in the book, imo.

I think the shock Colleen was expressing was a pleasant one, if I'm reading her right, that the committee took a chance by honoring a book that could be seen as controversial in some quarters--although we can certainly hope people are smart and behave and don't go into furor mode because of the issues it deals with. But it only takes one loudmouth, as we know. The Printz Committee this year did a fabulous job, truly. (Thank god librarians are so much smarter than Dave Truesdale! But then most sentient beings seem to be.)

Hi Colleen (and Gwenda),

I may be getting a touch oversensitive, having had variations on the 'This is for teenagers?' conversation with a lot of adult readers since the book came out.

You're right, Colleen, the line is always drawn somewhere, but it's drawn in a different place pretty much for every child/young adult reader, and for every parent, and for every teacher-librarian. Which makes everyone uncomfortable who wants neat and stable categories. But this YA category is really, really blurry around the edges.

Yours muzzily,
Margo.