![]() ![]() But Shepard doesn't use any magic tricks in getting us to sympathize with him page by page, we see where he's going wrong and a few glimmers of the reasons why, and yet we're powerless to stop him. Hanratty is a bright, difficult kid he says weird things sometimes, and he's dangerously withdrawn with his teachers, his schoolmates and his parents. That lands Hanratty in detention on his first day. ![]() Hanratty keeps his cool, but when teach asks him for an example of an "innovator," a 20th century figure who "found new ways of addressing society's problems," Hanratty offers the name of serial killer Richard Speck. Hanratty's social studies teacher, in particular, seems to have it in for him: He makes a wisecrack about Hanratty's sullenness the minute the kid walks through the door on the first day of school, practically challenging him to talk back. ![]() Shepard tells the story from the point of view of Hanratty, an eighth-grader whom nobody seems to like - and at first, you think that might include his teachers as well as the other students. In fact, aside from a few obvious bullies, there are no villains in "Project X": It's a tragedy, pure and simple. The key to Jim Shepard's sixth novel, "Project X," about two misfit suburban kids who plan a Columbine-style massacre at their school, is that it doesn't earn sympathy for its young protagonists by making villains out of all the grown-ups. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |