‘We the Animals,’ now a movie, was a 'quick, raw, punchy' novel by Justin Torres | Books | Dallas News
Editor's note: Justin Torres' novel We the Animals has just been turned into a movie that opens Friday, Sept. 7 at the Angelika theaters in Dallas and Plano. This review of the book was originally posted on Sept. 2, 2011.
Telling the story of three mixed-race brothers growing up in New York state, Justin Torres’ debut novel, We the Animals, is a quick, raw, punchy read. Narrated initially from a plural point-of-view, the “animals” of the title are Manny, Joel and the unnamed youngest brother, who eventually ends up telling the story himself. He functions as the center and soul of the trio, and when he’s ultimately cast out, it’s both an end and a beginning.
Uprooted from their parents’ Brooklyn origins, the family struggles to fit in, with the father spending most of his time out of work, and the mother toiling on the graveyard shift at a brewery. The sons revel in their life on the margins. “We hunted animals. We drudged through the muck of the crick, chasing down bullfrogs and water snakes. We plucked the baby robins from their nest. We liked to feel the beat of tiny hearts, the struggle of tiny wings. We brought their tiny animal faces close to ours. ‘Who’s your daddy?’ we said, then we laughed and tossed them into a shoebox.”
Their father, Paps, calls them “Mutts”: “You ain’t white and you ain’t Puerto Rican”. A neighbor sums up their identity best, as they writhe and fight on his porch: “‘Animals,’ he hissed.”
The plot is minimal, unfolding in a loose collection of incidents, told in a high-key, lyrical mode: Paps, the shiftless Puerto Rican father, abuses the long-suffering Anglo mother, cheats on her, loves her, begs for her to take him back. He tries to teach the youngest son and mother to swim in a lake at night, with near-disastrous consequences — hence his oft-repeated phrase, “Easier to sink than to swim.” He buys a truck, ignoring the foolishness of his choice.
The chapters are short, usually only a few pages, and describe memorable events in tried-and-true coming-of-age-novel fashion. It follows the tradition of Frank Conroy’s memoir/novel Stop-Time, although updated with a contemporary spin.
Near the end the family explodes after reading the youngest brother’s diary: “This was our last time all five in a room together. I could have risen; I believe they would have embraced me. Instead, I behaved like an animal. I tried to rip the skin from their faces, and when I couldn’t, I tried to rip the skin from my own. They held me on the ground; I bucked and spat and screamed my throat raw.”
A graduate of the Iowa Writing Workshops and currently a Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford, Torres has the literary right stuff. Although We the Animals is not a robust, fully developed novel, it is memorable and vivid. Ultimately Torres’ debut seems closer in form to a novella in its minimal length (123 pages, with much white space), closer to poetry in its lyrical style, and closer to a collection of linked short stories in its episodic plot. It’s comparable to Sandra Cisneros’s outstanding early fiction, The House on Mango Street, and just as powerful.
Think about these four things before backing your kids' business ideas | Personal Finance | Dallas News
Certified financial planner Jon Ten Haagen of Huntington, N.Y., had a retired client who ignored his advice and gave $100,000 — most of her savings — to her son to start a restaurant. The business failed within a year, and he has yet to pay any of the money back, Ten Haagen says.
Don't offer money you can't afford to lose. Parents usually want their kids to succeed, and many are accustomed to sacrificing to help make that happen. But parents shouldn't be misled about the risks, financial planners say.
"This investment is going to be concentrated, illiquid, and with high risk of total loss," says Hui-chin Chen, a CFP in Arlington, Va. "If it fits in the parent's portfolio and does not jeopardize their retirement, then it's something both sides may consider."
Insist on a plan. Speaking of business plans, make sure your kid has one before any money changes hands, says Douglas A. Boneparth, a CFP in New York. The plan should include details such as the target audience for the business, what competition exists, expected setup and ongoing costs, and when the business is likely to be profitable.
Define your role. Will you be an investor in the company or a lender? Will you have a say in how the company operates? If the business succeeds, will you share in that success with a slice of the profits or the ability to sell your stake?
What about the other kids? Parents also should consider family dynamics if there are siblings, since helping one child can foster jealousy in the others. Those "Mom always liked you best" rivalries can tear families apart.
Parents don't have to make equal distributions to each child, but they may want to consider accounting for the money in their wills or other estate plans. If a loan isn't paid back, for example, it could be deducted from that child's inheritance, says Steve Branton, a CFP in San Francisco.
"A common tactic families use to sidestep conflict is avoidance, but transparency and communication are key to avoiding resentment within the family," Ford says.
It has been a long time since the Dixie Chicks have made headlines in country music, but maybe that’s because they got tired of all that attention. You might recall a teeny-tiny, pretty minor little incident where Chicks lead singer Natalie Maines criticized then-President George W. Bush while performing in London, and the shitshow that then ensued. The Chicks' albums were burned, their lives were threatened and their careers were seemingly over. But praise the Lord and pass the ammunition, because the Dixie Chicks have officially reunited.
Earlier this summer, the Chicks announced that next year they would head off on their first tour in nearly a decade. Devastatingly, though, the tour is only scheduled to cover Europe in 2016, with dates in London, Glasgow and Dublin. But after the tour was officially announced, Maines hinted at coming U.S. tour dates via Twitter. If there ever were a time for a Twitter rumor to be true, it had better be this one. Please let the Dixie Chicks come back to Dallas.
It’s worth noting that the Dixie Chicks originated in Dallas. It was here that Maines joined forces with Martie and Emily Erwin to create the country world’s first majorly successful girl group. And majorly successful they were. Before their fall, the Dixie Chicks became both the best-selling all-female act in all of music, and the most popular country artists in the entire world. They continued on to even broader mainstream success in the pop and adult contemporary worlds with Taking the Long Way, the Chicks’ 2006 retrospective on the scandal that had fundamentally changed their lives and their careers.
Embarrassingly, the most credible threat to Maines’ life in the thick of the scandal came from Dallas. After the Dallas date of the Top of the World Tour, the band had to be escorted by police directly to the airport. In a 2006 Associated Press interview, Emily Erwin Robison said they had a real reason to be scared. “There was one specific death threat on Natalie. [It] had a time, had a place, had a weapon. I mean, everything ...‘You will be shot dead at your show in Dallas.'”
But hopefully, we can put that all behind us, and Dallas won’t show its ass if (or when, rather) the Dixie Chicks come back around. Maines has promised us U.S. tour dates, and she certainly isn’t the type to shy away from playing a place just because the people there don’t like her. Besides, almost 10 years later, no one in Dallas cares enough about defending George W. Bush to threaten someone, or at least they shouldn’t. Dallas deserves to see the reunited Dixie Chicks, and we're praying our good prayers to make it happen, O Lord.
Now is the perfect time for the Dixie Chicks to come back. They’ve already contended with Toby Keith and deranged would-be domestic terrorists, which means they could easily kick Florida-Georgia Line’s ass back to whatever swamp in hell they came from. With just one ultra-feminist glare from Maines, Luke Bryan would be turned into dust. And then, of course, their music would shut up every single naysayer in the genre. You might hate Maines' politics, but you don’t hate her voice. You don’t hate “Goodbye Earl” and that cover of “Landslide.” You just don’t.
The individual Dixie Chicks have been making music since the group disbanded. Maines released an acclaimed solo effort, Mother, in 2013, and sisters Emily Erwin Robison and Martie Erwin Maguire have recorded some solid tunes together as Court Yard Hounds. But when they are all three together — Maines’ voice, Robison’s banjo and dobro and Maguire’s fiddle — the Chicks represent everything that is good and wonderful about country music. We desperately need a reminder that country music isn’t just mass-marketed and sexist schlock.
So please Lord, please, send the Dixie Chicks to Dallas. They don’t even have to record a new album. That would be great, but we’re not greedy. We just want to sing along that “Earl had to die!” one more time, and watch Maguire shred her fiddle damn near into pieces. We just want to see three artists who have clearly grown up and evolved, but still haven’t lost their edge, do what they do best: make the best country music of the past 30 years.