Book Review: Asher's Fault
Asher’s Fault. Elizabeth Wheeler. Bold Strokes Books, Valley Falls, NY, September 17, 2013, Paperback and E-book, 264 pages.
Reviewed by Marie Becker.
Fourteen-year-old Asher’s family and friends don’t understand why he not only likes his vintage Minolta camera, with black and white film, better than digital photography, but refuses to photograph people. Instead, he zeroes in on a twisted pine tree or the church steeple against a backdrop of clouds. These motifs--the distance provided by a camera lens, the sharp contrast of black and white, and whether we can trust what we see--are threaded throughout the novel.
The book opens on the day Asher’s aunt gives him the camera, the same day his father moves out of the family home. Not long after, Asher finds himself at the community pool, kissing the new boy in town in the locker room at the very moment his younger brother Travis is drowning outside.
The author reveals all of this in the book’s opening pages. This novel’s heart lies in seeking to portray honest and devastating emotional authenticity.
Wheeler is a strong, evocative writer, and the book offers some lovely turns of phrase, shifting easily from lyrical description to prickly adolescent sarcasm. Punctuating the chapter openings with descriptions of Asher’s photographs works beautifully to set the mood (some of the photographs can be seen on Wheeler’s website, a nice touch).
In some ways, the tone wonderfully captures the atmosphere of early adolescence: the uncertainty, the powerlessness, and the uneasy navigation of a world where the rules are suddenly changing. In particular, I was struck by the way Wheeler handles grief; it is neither linear nor melodramatic, but quietly permeates the last two-thirds of the book without any false promises of an easy resolution.
Elizabeth Wheeler is a high school English teacher, and one way this book impressed me was in its obvious respect for the full emotional lives of the teenage characters. Although I certainly wish to have seen several of them more developed, there are no cheap shots, easy targets, or manipulative clichés. Garrett, the boy Asher kisses, refuses to be pigeonholed as a target of homophobia. Kayla, the prickly Goth offers a lovely moment of compassion just when it’s needed. In order to tell a story this centered on complex and conflicting emotions, it’s absolutely essential for the author to fully engage in, and respect, the importance of moments that could come off as melodramatic in less sensitive hands, and Wheeler succeeds.
The quiet, meditative tone also produces one of the book’s main weaknesses. Major revelations occur in the last fifteen or twenty pages, leaving little time for neither the character nor the reader to appreciate their impact. The lack of closure on many, if not most of the book’s issues may be a realistic snapshot of adolescent angst, but it’s not completely satisfying as a narrative. It feels a bit jarring in contrast with the pacing in the first third of the book; if the opening arguably lays out the plot too soon, the conclusion relies a bit too heavily on a short, sharp shock. Also, Asher’s encounters with Garrett remain unresolved, in a way many which readers looking for a more prominent coming-out story or a romantic arc may find disappointing.
However, despite the uneven pacing of the reveal-heavy end, Wheeler has undoubtedly drawn a portrait of a sympathetic and thoughtful teenager grappling honestly with real issues. Tighter plotting in future books (a sequel may be in the works) will only enhance her already sensitive characterization and insight.