The Porcupine of Truth

April 6, 2015
Konigsberg (Openly Straight) eloquently explores matters of family, faith, and sexuality through the story of 17-year-old Carson Smith, whose therapist mother has dragged him from New York City to Billings, Mont., where his alcoholic father is dying. After Carson meets Aisha, whose conservative Christian father threw her out of the house when he discovered she is a lesbian, the teens embark on a multistate road trip, chasing down fragmentary clues that might lead them to find Carson’s long-absent grandfather. Strained parent-child relationships are laced throughout this story—on top of Carson and Aisha’s anger toward their respective fathers, Carson’s mother only talks to him in detached therapyspeak (“I truly hear underneath the sarcasm that you’re feeling pain, Carson”), and Carson’s father hasn’t put his own paternal abandonment behind him. Bouts of humor leaven the characters’ intense anguish in a story that will leave readers thinking about inherited traits (whether an oddball sense of humor or a tendency to overdrink), the fuzzy lines between youth and adulthood, and the individual nature of faith. Ages 14–up. Agent: Linda Epstein, Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency.

March 1, 2015
A straight, white wisecracking atheist from New York City finds both his mind and heart opened when he spends a summer in Billings, Montana, with his estranged, dying father. On his first day in Billings, Carson meets Aisha, a fellow wisecracker from one of the few black families in Billings. Aisha's religious Christian father has kicked her out of their home for being a lesbian. Carson impulsively offers her a place to stay, and his mother and father reluctantly agree. The four of them sharing a home-Carson, Aisha, Carson's mother, who communicates almost exclusively in therapy-speak, and Carson's father, sometimes bitter, sometimes vulnerable, usually drunk-could fill a book on its own. But when Carson and Aisha discover evidence that Carson's grandfather, who disappeared when Carson's father was a child, might be findable, the two embark on a far-reaching road trip. The pacing is occasionally uneven, and some of the devices that keep Carson and Aisha on their journey are a bit too convenient, but the story tackles questions about religion, family, and intimacy with depth and grace. The mystery of Carson's grandfather is resolved with bittersweet thoroughness, and Aisha's storyline comes to a hopeful, if also painful, resolution of its own. Equal parts funny and profound. (Fiction. 14-18)

Starred review from March 1, 2015

Gr 9 Up-Carson's mother thwarts his summer plans when she drags him from New York City to Montana. He wasn't especially looking forward to working at a frozen yogurt shop, but it couldn't be worse than staying with his ailing (and alcoholic) father, a man he hasn't seen in 14 years. Aisha Stinson has been sleeping at the Billings Zoo since coming out to her ultra-conservative father. After a chance meeting, Carson and Aisha recognize each other as kindred spirits. Aisha comes to stay with Carson's family, and the pair soon unearth family secrets in the basement. They set off on a roadtrip to uncover the root cause of three generations of estrangement. As they pursue a reconciliation with Carson's missing grandfather, both teens wrestle with their own strained family relationships. Konigsberg perfectly depicts the turbulent intensity of a new friendship. Carson is an intensely likable, hilarious, and flawed narrator. There are no true villains in the well-developed cast of characters, just people trying to do their best and frequently failing. VERDICT Konigsberg weaves together a masterful tale of uncovering the past, finding wisdom, and accepting others as well as oneself.-Tony Hirt, Hennepin County Library, MN

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 1, 2015
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Seventeen-year-old Carson has come from New York City to Billings, Montana, to spend the summer with his dying father, whom he hasn't seen in 14 years. Things are different in Billings. For one thing, it's quiet; for another, there are no animals in the Billings Zoowell, except for a depressed Siberian tiger with a look of existential despair in his eyes. However, all is not lost, for it is at the zoo that Carson meets Aisha and falls instantly in love. There's only one hitch: Aisha is a lesbian. Carson is disappointed, but, nevertheless, the two form an easy, bantering friendship, and together they set off in search of Carson's grandfather, who vanished when Carson's dad was a teenager. Their goal is to bring the dying man closure, but their quixotic search ends up testing their friendship. And the truth, when it emerges, may be as thorny as, well, a porcupine. Konigsberg (Openly Straight, 2013) employs a colorful style (a day is warm, like bread just out of the oven, and Carson's new room is like a remote bunker where people store their afterthoughts ) and crafts fascinating, multidimensional teen and adult characters. A friendship between a straight boy and a lesbian is relatively rare in YA fiction and is, accordingly, exceedingly welcome. And that's the truth.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)