The sequel to
Jim the Boy is considerably more grown up, and we found it to lend perhaps more insight than we wanted into a teen boy's mind. Nevertheless, Tony Earley is capable of transporting us into that mind and another time.
We like to think youth is a simpler time than adulthood, small town life than the big city, or the 1940s than the 2010s, but
The Blue Star blows those fallacies/fantasies out of the water. What could be more fraught with hazard than love in any age? Or war, conscientious objection, and race relations?
Similarly, who could be under more pressure (peer or otherwise) than a high school senior or a pregnant teen? Who's life is more at risk than an impoverished, beautiful woman? Who is more dangerous than a powerful, jealous man?
There is little of the boy Jim's charm in the teenager he became, except at his most awkward moment late in the book the the kitchen with his girlfriend's mother. Parts are very strange (Jim's dream/vision during the truck ride up the mountain with Bucky's coffin, conversations with Dennis Deane).
A discussion question asked whether Jim was our favorite character in the novel, and why or why not. I'd have to say not, because, as in the earlier novel, the uncles stand out. Here are men who've passed through all that teenage angst, know themselves, are assured of their place in society, and accepting of their responsibilities. They have honor -- a virtue that we barely recognize.
Jim is just learning what love costs the beloved. In this sense,
The Blue Star is anti-romance, and maybe that's the male perspective shining through. A worthy perspective.
Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James
