YA or STFU

Hero Type, by Barry Lyga

Lyga, Barry (2008). Hero-Type. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 293 pages.

I think I’ve finally got it figured out: Barry Lyga (as An Author) is a combination of Chris Crutcher, John Greene, and Hugh Hefner. Chris Crutcher because of he works the issue-slash-school-story trope; John Greene because, in spite of the whole Chris Crutcher thing, Lyga manages not to write like a fogey; and Hugh Hefner because, in spite of some explicit comments to the contrary in Hero-Type, there’s still an uncomfortable (albeit pseudo-feminist) amount of female objectification in Lyga’s novels.

Hero-Type is narrated by 16-year-old Kevin Ross, a zit-faced member of a group of school outcasts who call themselves the Fools, who becomes known in his town as a hero after he saves the life of a fellow classmate. Following the whole life-saving thing, Kevin (known as Kross to his friends) is given a key to his city, profiled in newspapers and on television, and newly acknowledged by his classmates. After he is given a car (at cost) by the town mayor and he is caught on camera throwing away the “Support our troops” magnets the mayor slapped on the car, Kross’s school and town turn against him, declaring him unpatriotic and accusing him of “hating” America’s freedom fighters. Kross defends himself publicly, a move that ultimately pits him against one of the school’s most popular dudes in a public debate about the First Amendment (this is the Chris Crutcher part).

In spite of the cheesy First Amendment debate thing, I never felt like I was being manipulated into “believing” in school as a forum for free thought and schoolwork (or class readings) as ultimately relevant and important tasks the way I often feel after reading an issue book set in school and dealing with a social studies topic. In fact, the whole freedom of speech thing turned out to be a gear from which a number of character revelations spun, not all of which (or really, any of which) related to the First Amendment in an obvious or cosmetic way. Dude, other authors can really take a cue from Lyga’s use of the issue-slash-school-story trope.

That said, the fault I found in this book is the feature of all the Lyga books I’ve read and that really sticks in my craw. Lyga’s always using the insightful-and-sometimes-damaged-or-at-least-freaky-girl-exposes-male-narrator-to-his-flaws-and-opens-up-his-world device. In this book, its Kross’s friend’s girlfriend who becomes the narrator’s sounding board. Although this novel does deal with issues of objectification and what one character identifies as Kross’s real problem, that he doesn’t see girls as “real people,” at the meta level, the girls in this book still play a sort of symbolic role and, thus, cause the novel to sort of contradict itself.

That said (again!), I did like this book and spent much of my Columbus Day Sunday on the couch reading it. More so than Boy Toy (and definitely more so than Fan Boy), I think this novel doesn’t deny its characters complexity, even if they are “only” teenagers, a detail that makes a good YA novel, in my estimation.