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Childsong

Thor Polson
Athena Press (2007)
ISBN 9781844017317
Reviewed by LuAnn Morgan for RebeccasReads (6/08)

Thor Polson wrote this exploration of youth in the early 1980s and waited twenty years to publish it. The story revolves around a group of students at a small college in the Midwest U.S. and details how their selfishness, jealousy and despair affect their thoughts and actions.

The book begins with Clifton, the egotistical jock who thinks he has the world at his beck and call. This is the young man who all the girls and boys love. He’s self-centered and thinks the world revolves around him. He’s also rude and self-serving, yet that doesn’t stop others from looking up to him and coveting what he has.

The other main character seems to be Thomas, a student who has the potential to do great things, but circumstances have gotten in his way. He wants to be a poet, yet never seems to finish anything he starts; if he does finish something, he ends up wadding it up and tossing it into the trash. He’s afraid to share his work with others for fear of rejection, and the few poems others have read are difficult for them to understand. The “Me Generation” mentality of the 1980s prevents his peers from seeing past their own ideas and ideals and grasp what Thomas feels.

Other students include a girl every boy wants to love, another girl who is actually worthy of every boy’s love but not pretty enough to draw the attention.  There’s a boy struggling with feelings of homosexuality, and a boy who feels cast aside by his peers.

Polson’s writing is unique. Combining narrative, prose and creative writing, he has meshed a conglomeration of techniques into a book that forces the reader to slow down and confront what the cast of characters is facing.  It’s indeed an interesting style of writing and one I’ve never encountered before. 

Although difficult to read at times, “Childsong” does stir the reader’s emotions. Polson creates a storyline that makes you are angry, sympathetic, empathetic and sad all at the same time.  This is a creative book – to say the least – and one that will require your full attention.

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