Young God

The dark promise of life

Young God: A Novel by Katherine Faw Morris (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $24).

What seems like a traumatic beginning—Nikki’s mother falls or slips from a diving ledge into a rocky pool, crushing her head on the rocks—is by far the least awful thing that happens to this young teenager coping with poverty, abuse, and drugs in rural North Carolina.

A runaway from a group home, Nikki seeks refuge with her father, an ex-con who is pimping another teenager—and fellow escapee from the group home—to support him. But he quickly enlists Nikki into a plan to make some money, starting by ripping off drug dealers to finance a new enterprise offering cheap heroin to junkies who can no longer afford the price of their show more Oxy.

Even as Nikki fights to keep her head above water and keep control of her life, the same forces that put her family in this fix are closing around her head.

Dark, spare, and honest, Young God is a frightening look at the reality of life in a particularly rural poverty and criminality. It’s hard to read, but even harder to put down.

Reviewed at Lit/Rant: www.litrant.tumblr.com show less

An extraordinarily powerful debut novel. Well, novella. Is it a modern fairly tale? It could be - at least a fairy tale that Kathy Acker's been let loose on. Terrible things happen to children in these North Carolina woods. Adults seem powerless or incompetent or just too plain evil to prevent them. The kids have to cope by their own wits according to the standards that have been demonstrated. If its a modern fairy tale, its as bleak as anything the Grimms came up with. Although of course the Brothers Grimm expurgated the sexual violence from the tales they collected and left just the violence . Faw Morris leaves both in.

Its hard to say much about the plot without unravelling its few strands. This a book of mood more than of plot but show more here goes. Nikki has been 13 forever. She is running to adult independence as fast as she can, unsurprisingly given the general uselessness of the adults around her. She's been in DSS care, but is in the company of her mother and her mother's boyfriend when her mother slips - well, probably slips - from a cliff and dies. She moves in with the boyfriend, who loses little time in taking sexual advantage of her - a loss of virginity that Nikki experiences as a detached observer. "Ohh" thinks Nikki. But sex doesn't buy her love, or care, or a childhood. Soon, another girl has moved into the boyfriend, Wesley's bed, and Nikki grabs a backpack of pills and Wesley's car and heads off to find her father. Of course she can't drive. Of course she's too young to drive. But this is a fairy tale and so with perseverance she will prevail

Her father's been in jail, but he's out now. He's surprised to see her, but treats her like an adult. Only her 7 year old cousin Levi treats Nikki like a child, and before the book is done she'll be treating him like an adult in turn.

Her father is pimping out her 15 year old friend Angel. Angel warns Nikki that he's probably going to sell her virginity, but of course Nikki isn't a virgin. So she finds a virgin for her father - her friend Renee. Bad things happen to Renee.

Her father involves her in a drug robbery - they get away with it, and Nikki gets involved in backwoods black tar heroin sale selling her fathers stash to anyone who comes around. Nikki takes E. Nikki chases the dragon. Nikki shoots up and falls asleep with needles sticking out of her arm. "Ohh" thinks Nikki. Nikki vomits. Nikki nods out. Nikki comes back for more.

And then, in a brief flicker of conscience, Nikki's father decides to send her to, err, school. Which brings on a final conflict.

There are technical flaws in this book which I won't go into now. But the power is ferocious. I read this on a plane in 2 hours. Then, I read it again before we landed. It was even more rewarding the second time

I had first seen an excerpt of this in Granta. Interesting, in the excerpt Nikki was 12, not 13. I am kind of hoping Ms Morris tells us what happens to Nikki next as she is one of the most extraordinary literary creations of the last few years. But if not I am happy to have this line to remember her by

Something warm bursts inside her brain like its being eaten. "Ohh" says Nikki show less

The blast of this novel is almost too strong - it flashes by you like streetlamps exploding as you drive past. The talent present is undeniable, though. To not only write such a visceral, violent novel but to then cut it down so ruthlessly... Katherine Faw Morris might well be her own novel title. Those of you who get squeamish, have any kind of need for any kind of trigger warning, or who don't appreciate the underbelly of American reality... well, perhaps steer clear. But if you've got guts, take a crack at this one. It'll rock you, roll you, and leave you panting when its over, wondering what the hell just happened - in the best possible way.

More at RB: http://ragingbiblioholism.com/2014/06/09/young-god/

The blast of this novel is almost too strong - it flashes by you like streetlamps exploding as you drive past. The talent present is undeniable, though. To not only write such a visceral, violent novel but to then cut it down so ruthlessly... Katherine Faw Morris might well be her own novel title. Those of you who get squeamish, have any kind of need for any kind of trigger warning, or who don't appreciate the underbelly of American reality... well, perhaps steer clear. But if you've got guts, take a crack at this one. It'll rock you, roll you, and leave you panting when its over, wondering what the hell just happened - in the best possible way.

More at RB: http://ragingbiblioholism.com/2014/06/09/young-god/

Hmmm...while adding this book to the catalog, I read the first few pages, then did not want to put it down. I kept wondering, did my colleague pick this or did I? It's not young adult fare, although the main character is 13. Storytelling in this short novel is compelling: a young girl, product of poor, ignorant, beyond red neck, drug-dealing parents survives abuse and neglect to become even more hardcore than her crack-dealing father. The language is spare, the emotion flat; it seems right for Nikki, who has been through neglect, DSS custody, and extreme poverty--she feels nothing but the desire to survive in a brutal environment the way she has seen her father do. The reviews of other readers are all over the place, from one to five show more stars; I found the storytelling and spare language impressive enough for three.

This morning I decided to change my rating to four stars. The author managed to convey the characters and their ugly lives with such an economy of words--they, and their surroundings, were quite believable. And after all, I read the book in a couple of hours, not being able to put it down. show less

This book took a little over an hour to read.
It was recommended because of the other gritty southern noir books I have read. All of those books were written by authors with talent, this is like a scattershot stream of consciousness, of an illiterate white trash 13 year old. I think this book is supposed to be shocking, but the only shocking thing is, that it ever got published! A Bazooka Joe comic has more depth and a fortune cookie exhibits more writing skills than this book.