| Guilty pleasure >>
Dirk Wittenborn’s Fierce People by
JULIET WATERS But on a rainy Friday night, when I’m at the video store where I’ve seen everything, Cruel Intentions is what I’ll leave with. It’s a guilty-pleasure classic. Ridiculous, yes, but it’s supposed to be—they’re teenagers. The innocent corruption of scheming, out-of-control teens will always be more compelling than all those witty rewrites of the lives of jaded middle-aged dilettantes who really have no excuse to be so soulless. One day, hopefully, a movie will be made of Fierce People by Dirk Wittenborn. Then we’ll have everything: a rich, bratty brother-and-sister team, a resourceful, relatively normal kid, clueless corrupt parents, lots of drugs and booze, a billionaire, wily old fart just looking for someone to mentor—all this and witty, intelligent writing. As a bonus, it’s set in the late ’70s when punk was fresh, and there was still a newness to extreme youthful depravity. Forget the dust cover comparisons to The Great Gatsby or Huckleberry Finn. There’s no great insight into the human condition in Fierce People, beyond the obvious “being rich doesn’t necessarily make you happy.” But this is the moral rot that great summer books are made of. As the novel opens, our 15-year-old hero, Finn Earl, is living on the Lower East Side of New York. When he hears his mother screaming “Oh my God!” he knows those three words can only mean one of two things: something has caught fire in the toaster oven, or she has a new boyfriend. The toaster oven’s fine. Mom, however, is not. The daughter of a famous psychiatrist, she seems hell bent on fucking Finn up, from dragging in a series of loser boyfriends, to engulfing Finn with icky, faux intimacy, to sending him out to buy a gram of coke, which he ends up getting busted for. Finn was looking forward to spending the summer with his father, a famous anthropologist best known for his work with the Yanomano, aka “The Fierce People,” so called because they are the meanest people on the planet. Instead, to avoid juvenile hall, he’s going to have to spend the summer in an exclusive part of New Jersey, Vlyvalle, a playground for the super-rich. His mother, a masseuse, has called on the generosity of one of her most satisfied clients, a very rich, very old man named Mr. Osbourne. Eventually, Finn will wonder if he didn’t end up, after all, with the meanest people on the planet. But until then, he’s going to have a lot of fun. Especially when he’s first taken under the wing of the town’s golden kids, Maya and Bryce Langley, Osbourne’s grandchildren. Maya discovers Finn stuck in a bear trap she set for the poachers who shot her dog. Sensing an innate coolness in Finn that transcends his awkward teenage goofiness, she falls in love. Bryce defies all the stereotypes of trust-fund brats. He’s generous and only nasty to the stuck-up members of his tribe. He and Finn bond like brothers. Finn can’t believe his luck—until Maya’s birthday, when she and Finn, whacked out of their minds, are about to make love on the private island she’s been given as a present. Suddenly they hear creepy laughter. From that moment, life starts to become increasingly difficult and complicated. To
reveal more would ruin a nicely constructed plot. Some readers may find
it a little predictable, but Finn’s likable, smart narration keeps
the book moving. One wants to know the truth about Vlyvalle, yet never
feels tempted to skip ahead. A good, fierce read. : Fierce
People by Dirk Wittenborn, Bloomsbury, pb, 352pp, $22.95 |
