Author: Joshua Braff
Copyright Date: 2004
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Genre: Adult Fiction
The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green by Joshua Braff reminded
me of a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Like
Larry David, Jacob’s thoughts are unfiltered and often painfully honest. Braff
exposes Jacob’s life at ages ten, thirteen, and fifteen years old. A period of
time when Jacob wrestles with the typical coming of age angst, but does so under
the crushing weight of his overbearing jerk of a father, Abram.
Abram is where the story differs from Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Abram is best summed up by a speech that Jacob imagines his mother giving:
“Such is the narcissist who must
mask his fears of inadequacy by ensuring that he is perceived to be a unique
and brilliant stone. In his offspring, he finds the grave limits he cannot
admit in himself.”
If that quote doesn’t quite paint his character, think of the
live-through-my-offspring mother seen on reality shows about toddler pageants
and you’ve got Abram.
Thankfully, Braff uses Asher, Jacob’s older brother, to act
out against and dampen Abram’s supreme rule. I mentally begged Jacob to follow
in Asher’s example. To try and rebel, just a little against his father. Yet,
unlike Asher, Jacob witnesses their father’s hurt from Asher’s rebellion; hurt which
only helps to deepen Jacob’s loyalty to Abram.
The story delves into the psyche of the abused. Jacob is obsessed
with not angering his father. He has plenty of opportunities to break free of
his dad’s tyranny, but doesn’t take them.
A friend of mine who works in legal cases dealing with
abused spouses told me that an abused wife typically ends up in the hospital seven times before leaving her husband.
And, that’s an adult. It’s harder for kids. Braff realistically demonstrates
the intense loyalty that some children feel toward their abusing parent. Like
Jacob, the children possess a naïve optimistic hope that he or she can change
their parent’s behavior by improving their own.
The sadness of the story is balanced by the levity of
Jacob’s thoughts. A chunk of his thoughts are expressed through thank you notes
that Jacob is supposedly writing. The letters are a useful literary device
considering that they provide only the protagonist’s side to a conversation.
The device is similar to Charlie’s diary entries in The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chbosky and Mile’s narration in Looking for Alaska by John Green;
two other novels that also deal with the banishment of innocence.
The time period is in the eighties – cassette tapes, metal
rock, and big hair. One of my favorite laughs is when Jacob talks about
preserving a tape forever. I tried this, but after selling our car with a tape
player last spring, I finally threw out all of my well-loved mixed tapes. Tech
changes rapidly, but when you’re a kid, it’s easy to imagine life as more
permanent – mixed tapes as well as relationships.
The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green is fast, easy reading.
If it was published today, it would potentially be categorized in the popularly
growing YA genre versus its 2004 categorization as adult fiction.
Spoiler
alert. The ending has no closure. I like closure; yet throughout the story Jacob
grows and matures. His innocence has been tainted by his life’s events. He’s
wiser, right? Braff has instilled hope that Jacob might finally act on his unthinkable
thoughts. But does he? Can Jacob be loyal and be free? It’s up to the reader to
decide.
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