School Boards Want to Burn This Sweet, Uplifting Novel
Charges of “pedophilia” and immorality are bizarre
The New York Times Book Review calls Mike Muñoz “a Holden Caulfield for a new millennium,” and maybe that’s overhyped, but it’s not wildly off base. Mike is the quirky-cool protagonist of Lawn Boy, Jonathan Evison’s latest novel. Evison is pretty cool himself. His dialogue always crackles, his settings are so grounded in place and time you feel you’re there, and his voice morphs into something unique and special with each new book. He’s the kind of novelist we all wish we could grow up to become.
When Lawnboy went to print, I’m sure Evison never expected controversy, least of all that parents would storm school board meetings around the country condemning his story as “pedophilia,” calling it “sick,” and even “perverted.” Maybe he’s thankful, though. I am, because without the outcry, I would not have been so fast to to buy the novel, which became my favorite read of 2021.
More on the controversy in a minute, but first let’s talk about about Holden, err … Mike.
Mike Muñoz is a young man a few years out of high school, the son of a single mother, raised on a Washington State Indian reservation where poverty is a way of life. People call Mike a Mexican American because of his last name, but he…
