レビュー

• 隠れた傑作文芸小説

  まったく期待していない時に、思いがけない傑作に出会うことがある。Rufi ThorpeのThe Knockout Queenもそのひとつだ。 裕福な者の豪邸と貧困家庭の荒屋が混在するカリフォルニアのある町で、男子高校生のMichaelは同級生の少女Bunnyと出会う。Michaelは、母が父を刺した傷害事件で服役したときから母の姉（妹？）の家で暮らしており、その隣家の豪邸に住んでいたのがBunnyだった。同性愛者を自覚するMichaelは、裕福で優れたアスリートであるBunnyの意外な不器用さや、町の有力人物であるBunnyの父親の怪しさを直感的に嗅ぎ取るが、同時に彼らに惹かれる。 BunnyとMichaelは親友になるが、それぞれに家族にまつわる恥や愛される渇望は隠し持ったままだった。Bunnyの父はアルコール依存症で、フレンドリーだが常にいかがわしい計画を立てている。Michaelの母は釈放された後に新しいボーイフレンドと妹と住み、息子を誘おうとしない。叔母はゲイの彼をかばうために同居させているようだが、彼女にしてもMichaelを守り切ることはしない。男子生徒よりも遥かに背が高いことを気にするBunnyは自分に魅力がないことを悩み、Michaelはネットでみつけた年上の男性たちと性的な関係を持つようになる……。 これは、ゲイの少年Michaelのナレーションで綴られているが、彼の成長物語であると同時に、Bunnyのストーリーでもある。白人女性のRufi Thorpeがゲイの少年の視点で小説を書けるのかどうか、また書いていいのかどうか。それは、2020年現在のアメリカで話題になっている「文化盗用（Cultural appropriation）」にも関連する疑問である。 私自身も当事者ではないが、Thorpeが描くMichaelの視点や心情にはとても説得力がある。「普通」とみなされている身体 やセクシュアリティを持たないティーンが普通の高校で普通に生きることは難しい。経済的な背景や家族の事情、セクシュアリティは異なるが、「普通になれない」という点でMichaelとBunnyは似たもの同士だ。けれども、子供のような視点やピュアな衝動で行動し、周囲の者や運命から裏切られ続けるBunnyと、Michaelは異なる選択をする。 シングルマザーの家庭で育ち、東海岸の超名門寄宿高校で学び、16歳で大学に入学した作者も「普通」の青春時代を送っていないことが想像できる。その超名門高校では、才能がある貧困家庭の子どもに学費無料のスカラシップを与えるのだが、Thorpeもその一人だったとしたら、きっとMichaelやBunnyのような疎外感を抱いたことだろう。 もし異なる親を持っていたら、まったく異なる輝かしい人生を生きたかもしれないBunnyのことを思うと切なくなるが、同時に彼女のピュアな生き様に心動かされる。ユーモアのセンスもある優れた文章であり、つい周囲の人に勧めたくなる本のひとつだ。

• A lot to think about

  It’s a great book. It’s as brutal as it is kind and as funny as it is tragic, and through the unlikely friendship of two mismatched outsiders, we see that opposite truths can and do exist at the same time. The book is written in the voice of Michael, an alienated gay teenage boy, who must grapple to hold on to love for his friend while hating what she does. I keep thinking about this book and feel that I have learned something fundamental about human relationships. In addition, it was a really great read!

• Not what I was expecting...

  I hadn’t read anything about this book... Only heard a booktuber say it was about a tall girl with a boyfriend who turns out to be gay. So I thought this might be a cute, fun, light-hearted book to read. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. This is a story of two characters who feel different. One being an overly tall, athletic teen girl (Bunny) and the other a gay teen boy (Michael) who end up becoming best friends. Traumatic events strike both these characters that will have lasting effects on both. I enjoyed this story being told through adult Michael’s eyes and whose life had some very relatable moments for me. That connection really made his character believable. At times though I would get very frustrated at his attitude toward certain people like Bunny’s father, Ray. Yes, Ray may have been a snake in the real estate world and did some shady things behind Bunny’s back, but he took Michael in when he had nowhere to go and basically treated him like a son. And I was also upset how he let Bunny down later in the story. I basically felt like he was a little overly judgemental when he wasn’t exactly making all the right choices himself. But then again he was a teen and that’s how teens are. In the end I really felt the most sorry for Bunny whose life does not turn out the way one would think when first starting to read. But I thought the ending was quite beautiful... For that one moment things were how they were supposed to be.

• Tragic, Hopeful and Comic

  I fell into this book without realizing that I wouldn't be able to think about anything else until I finished it two days later. The author has a gift for going so deep into her characters that you can't help loving them, even when they do bad things. Bunny and Michael will stay in my mind for a long time.

• An Intense book

  A complicated character driven book that follows the unlikely friendship of two teenagers who are trying to figure out who they are and how they fit into life.

• A Coming of age/Loss of innocence story.

  Rufi Thorpe’s, “The Knockout Queen”, is a compelling, heartbreaking, yet ultimately hopeful coming of age/loss of innocence story. Bunny is well over six feet tall, strong, athletic, rich, and yearning for a boyfriend. Her best friend, Michael, is gay, poor, and worried about Bunny. Both are being raised in non-traditional households. They form a fierce and insular friendship to navigate high school. Narrated with incredible insight and wisdom by adult Michael, as he looks back on their high school days, trying to make sense of their tragic actions and decisions. Michael helps us understand the complexities of loving someone who makes bad decisions and is not always “good”. Themes of violence abound in this novel. Bunny is a female who is bigger and stronger than most men. What is it like to be a woman with such physical power? What decisions might a woman make if she possessed that kind of power?

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