Dear TBR,
When nine-year-old me first stumbled on a 1930’s edition of ANNE OF GREEN GABLES in a pile of discarded books, I was mainly interested in its thickness, and the fact that it would mean several hours during which I could escape the airless and stifling eternity that was summer vacation. The book itself was cloth-bound and hardbacked, covered in a woven white and green and lacking a dust cover, so the title only appeared faintly on the spine. Later I would be intrigued by the internal landscape of a very unique girl, and her plethora of unknown words which I nonetheless employed with confident inaccuracy – turning heads with my increasingly foreign pronunciations and effusive expressions of delight or distaste. I can’t really blame Anne for my complete weirdness as a child – but I did welcome the knowledge of another who was such an entirely square peg in a round hole. She was white, Canadian, Victorian and possessed of prejudices and a touchy pride I decidedly was not, but I read that book over and over and over that summer and for many years, annually – because Anne’s emotional interior, if not her skin tone, time period, or even her concerns – was me.
Anne Shirley, though first of her name, was not alone. There have been multiplicities of Annes, from the Japanese spin-offs of the 70’s to the more recent adult adaptations – Anne in Philly or whatnot. They’ve all been female, though… until Rey Terciero/Rex Ogle’s most recent graphic novel. DAN IN GREEN GABLES. Did the world need another Anne? Not necessarily – but the emotions of the book are true enough to have made a space for many people – but not for everyone… perhaps not for boys. In Terciero’s version, Dan isn’t orphaned – at least in his own mind. His Matthew and Marilla are, instead of geriatric siblings, grandparents – his. And rather than having only one kindred spirit, Dan’s world extends and expands to include two – in different ways – and numerous lighter bonds of relationship which nevertheless create the web which suspends him above the lava of his own emotions at times. Since Anne’s story is familiar I won’t go into the details, nor is this meant to be a beat-for-beat comparison between the original and Terciero’s newer work, but though the details differ, the heart is the same.
When Dan’s mother takes him, after years of it largely being the two of them against the world, to a little house in the Great Smoky Mountains, he doesn’t know where they’re going – or why. He only knows his mother is in a ‘mood.’ It’s a shock when they roll up to the home of his paternal grandparents. Conservative farm folk, they live quietly and mostly contentedly within their church community, so a couple of itinerant city-dwellers who sometimes sleep in the back of their truck is quite a disruption. A further disruption occurs when Dan’s mother immediately argues bitterly and vociferously with his grandfather – and then slips out in the middle of the night, leaving her teen-aged son behind with essential strangers. Though he’d met his grandparents as a small child, Dan doesn’t remember them – at all. His mother has never talked about them, or even his father very much. He knows nothing – and as an expressive gay teen is as welcome as an ulcer to his tightly wound, judgmental and homophobic grandfather. While his Mawmaw is ready with armloads of unconditional love, it’s apparent that even she can be made uncomfortable by Dan’s flamboyant appearance and wounded by his touchy temper which occasionally lashes viciously from the depths of his fear and grief at being abandoned. Dan’s wounds, questions, doubts, and determination are very Anne, and would have resonated with nine-year-old me, even though neither our skin color, nationality, gender, nor concerns are the same.
Dan, overall, is Anne – crushed by disappointment and mockery, hiding deeper heartbreak, salty and snarky, flying off the handle and jumping to conclusions, elated and ebullient, hopeful and hilarious – all that made Anne-with-an-e relatable makes Dan the same. As in the original book, religion is a cornerstone element of Dan’s story, as his grandparents are church cornerstones, and his deacon grandfather is deeply concerned with how they appear as a family to their church community. Some readers may be uncomfortable at the characterization of some Christians – accurate, though rather damning – but others will feel relieved to find the words for what they may have though, questioned, or hoped for in the depiction of others in faith.
Resilient, inclusive, quick to anger, quick to forgive, willing to examine his own behavior and to see the world through another’s point of view, Dan has all of the genuine, personable human elements that gave Anne such well-loved main character energy. Definitely imperfect and thin-skinned, and just as exasperating as Anne when she first came to Avonlea – Dan grows and changes, and becomes even stronger in this single volume than Anne learned to become in two. People who fear that this version of Anne of Green Gables is merely a faded imprint of a saccharine-sweet person who goes on to Do Good will be relieved. People who love beautifully drawn graphic novels will be delighted – Dan is colorful, expressive, and beautiful. I came to this book surprised by how well I liked it, and wistful that it was a graphic novel that doesn’t go on forever. This gave me the experience of coming to Anne of Green Gables for the first time, all over again.
I carried Anne Shirley with me for a lot of my life – I imagine that Dan of Green Gables will become a strong and portable fragment of someone’s hope – and heart – as well.
Fresh onto the TBR:
- Darksight Dare, Lois McMasters Bujold
- The Saltwater Curse, Avina St. Graves
- Behind Frenemy Lines, Zen Cho
Until the next book, 📖
Still A Constant Reader
