Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison
A Banned Book
Title: Lawn Boy
Author: Jonathan Evison
Publisher: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Publication Year: 2018
ISBN: 9781616202620
Rating: 5 stars
October 1st-7th is Banned Books Week. I celebrated, but because I was doing the Schwab series review, I didn’t get to do much blog-wise. I am an avid reader of banned books and I am firmly against censorship and book bans. You have every right not to want to read something, but when you use your own standards to keep others from reading certain books, you’re going too far. Since many banned books are about diverse communities and experiences, it’s hard not to notice that book bans shut down representation for some of the most underrepresented authors and communities. Many book bans are also targeted at books for children and teens, so they seem determined to limit the worldview and discourage acceptance in some of our youngest readers. It also keeps many young people from seeing themselves represented in literature, which can have disastrous effects.
Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of reading Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. I found the book really well done and informative, and I didn’t find anything in there that I objected to or felt like was unsafe for younger readers to read (though I do think it’s a book that pairs well with research and discussion). According to PEN America, Gender Queer was the most banned book in America during the 2021-22 school year, but ended up #5 on the most banned list for the 2022-23 school year. However, across both school years the book racked up 67 bans. Gender Queer was the number one banned book on the American Library Association’s (ALA) Most Challenged Books of 2022 list with 151 challenges.
Lawn Boy was number #7 on that same ALA list for 2022. It had 54 challenges. While the book was published as a book for adult readers and Mike Muñoz, the protagonist is an adult, it is a coming of age story. Many of the objections were based around its LGBTQ+ content, profanity, and claims that the book is sexually explicit. It doesn’t seem like the objections were targeted toward these topics, but the book also goes in-depth into bigotry and racial, classist, and economic disparities between the upper and lower classes.
The book is centered around Mike Muñoz, a man in his early twenties who lives in a single wide on a reservation in Suquamish, Washington with his mother and his older brother Nate, who is developmentally disabled. Mike’s life hasn’t been easy. Growing up his mother worked multiple minimum wage jobs to try to support them while a series of dead-beat father figures cycled through his life and took advantage of his mother’s support. They experienced being unhoused multiple times when even the multiple jobs weren’t enough to keep them housed. Growing up with a single parent working multiple jobs and no childcare, Mike and Nate spent a lot of time at the public library and at a youth group at a local church. Mike has had a lifelong love of the library and reading, which was fostered by being able to spend so much time at the library. Mike never felt as inspired with the youth group, but even as a child, he recognized the importance of having a free place to go that was warm and dry and that served snacks so he and his brother could get more to eat. When he was in fourth grade, Mike had an encounter with another boy in youth group, Doug Goble, where they touched each other’s penises and also experimented with oral sex. Goble is now a very successful realtor in the area and every time Mike sees one of his billboards or posters, he is reminded of this event.
As an adult, Mike still lives with his mother out of necessity and they take turns taking care of Nate and working very strenuous low paying jobs. Mike works as a landscaper at a company owned by a man named Lacy. Ever since seeing a video tour of Disneyland as a child, Mike has loved landscaping (and Disneyland even though he’s never been) and in his spare time, makes topiary sculptures at their home. The work is hard, and the pay is barely minimum wage, but for the most part he loves his job and sticks it out. He is still an avid reader and likes to read books like Sinclair’s The Jungle that speak to working conditions and class and economic issues. He is angry at the broken system, but Mike himself admits that he isn’t even registered to vote and isn’t doing anything about the issues he is facing. When he is able to leave Nate with his mom and go off duty, Mike spends most of the limited money left after paying for necessities to eat at a local restaurant where he has a crush on a waitress named Remy.
Mike has a best friend named Nick who grew up in an abusive home and was also poor. Nick now works at Les Schwab (I had to look this up because it isn’t really explained until near the end of the book—it’s a tire store) and makes a comfortable living. He lives on his own and has a Honda Accord that he has tricked out that Mike thinks is super tacky. Nick is a little bit of a racist, misogynist, and bigot saying horribly offensive things about Mexicans, women, and homosexuals. He is also constantly using toxic masculinity to make Mike feel bad about still living with his mother and his lack of sexual conquests or ability to get a date. Mike is bothered by the way Nick talks and his closed-minded opinions of others. Sometimes he thinks their relationship has run its course, but then he thinks about how Nick has always been kind and helpful to Nate and how he practically grew up at their house due to the instability of his own. He is more like a brother than a friend at this point and Mike just isn’t sure the whole relationship is worth throwing out just because he is deeply bothered by some of Nick’s opinions.
If money wasn’t enough of a concern, Mike goes through a rough patch employment-wise. He simultaneously quits and is fired from Lacy’s crew after he gets fed up with being forced to do menial tasks outside of his job duties for no extra pay while being treated as sub-human by his rich clients. He is expected to happily take on extra work like scooping dog poop with no notice and agreement while Lacy gets richer and does less work and he is still scraping by. After losing his job, he struggles to find another one. It’s not for lack of trying, but with just a high school diploma and only landscaping experience, he is turned down by every job he submits an application to. In need of more money, his mom allows a co-worker named Freddy to move into the shed in their yard to get the supplemental rental income. At first, Mike really doesn’t like Freddy. He’s constantly sitting in their living room smoking weed with one nut hanging out of his shorts. Freddy’s hobby is to create original soundtracks to vintage porn videos with his guitar. Freddy moving into the shed means that Mike’s lawn mower has to be kept outside, which he worries will lead to it getting stolen, which is what happens.
Eventually, Mike is able to land another job working for a man named Chaz at a company called Chaz Unlimited Limited. He is making almost double what he was making before to put together promotional key chains and bobble heads. To me, it sounded too good to be true, especially when Chaz started “educating” Mike on how to be a businessman and it seemed clear most of the stuff he was talking about was illegal. Chaz is eventually arrested and the business is closed, with Mike still being owed a $1400 paycheck. After another difficult job search, Doug Goble runs into Mike and offers him a job landscaping some of the houses that he has on the market. He also offers Mike an unbelievable salary, access to a work truck (which is important as Mike’s truck died), and praise. Mike starts to have second thoughts when Goble describes his philosophy on how to be a businessman and make money and to Mike it seems exploitative and disingenuous. When Mike is offered another job making $29 per hour by a rich man who lives next door to one of Goble’s properties, Goble encourages Mike to look out for himself and take the job even if it means not working for Goble any more. However, when Mike goes to accept the job, Goble has convinced the man to only offer $15 per hour and Mike no longer has the leverage to bargain. Mike accepts out of necessity, but quits after one morning of work because it wasn’t much better than working for Lacy in terms of money or respect. He once again finds himself with little to no money and looking for a job.
In the meantime, Mike has managed to make some progress with Remy. They go on a couple of dates, but Mike is so nervous around Remy that he ends up telling her all sorts of lies like that he is writing the Great American Landscaping novel and it’s going to be published. Mike likes to read, but after a disastrous 11-page attempt, he isn’t sure that writing is the thing for him. He has to come clean about these lies, which makes him look bad. The physicality in their relationship is also very awkward—Mike always feels off balance and when Remy wants to take it to the next level, he feels like he isn’t ready. He is also spending a lot of time with Andrew, an assistant at his local library. He likes that he and Andrew can discuss the books he’s reading and that Andrew always knows just what to recommend for him to read next. Andrew is also an activist and constantly organizes poorly attended protests for the causes he feels strongly about. While he doesn’t seem to be making a lot of waves, Mike is moved by how Andrew is able to actually do something to try to make the world a better place, unlike Mike who just complains about all the problems. He also feels like he and Andrew can have more uplifting conversations than the ones he has with Nick because the conversations are constantly centered around and dragged down by Nick’s bigoted speech and opinions. He starts to think that maybe Andrew is a best friend who is more his speed now.
Mike finally gets his big break when Tito, a man he used to work with at Lacy’s decides that he wants to start his own landscaping business and he wants Mike to be his partner. Tito knows that Mike is a skilled landscaper, but Tito is also from Mexico and while Mike is ancestrally half-Chicano, he looks white. Tito knows that having a white partner who talks to the clients and handles the business deals will allow them to charge higher prices and avoid the lowball offers Tito was getting on his own. They have very little business acumen between them, but they do have the skills to do the job and the experience to get them started, so Tito and Mike start their own company to have control over their own work and make fair wages.
While celebrating his new business venture with Andrew, Mike and Andrew kiss and Mike feels a spark that he never felt with Remy. After spending the night together, Mike realizes that he is gay. He personally doesn’t feel any trepidation about this realization, but he is nervous about coming out to his family and friends. He does and he is accepted even by Nick, who still says some terribly offensive things but who does seem to be trying to come around.
So first, in terms of the objections to this book, while sexual topics are discussed, I don’t feel like anything was overly explicit. None of Freddy’s porn videos are described and even though his nut is often hanging out, it is also not ever described. Andrew and Mike kiss and spend the night together, but I’m actually not even sure if they have sex because it isn’t described. While they are making out, Mike says, “I won’t bore you with the particulars:…the rest of that intimate stuff about our breath growing heavy and our hearts beating furiously and our man parts straining against our stout denim trousers. I’m not writing erotica here” (283). Because Mike is such an avid reader, he often makes allusions to other books and genres and this felt like an allusion to a steamy romance more than a recounting of what was actually going on. I was slightly uncomfortable at one of Mike’s retellings of his youth group experience with Goble, but that was more because it was describing a sex act between children than the explicitness of the description. This is a book for adults and in terms of that, is pretty tame. I think even if teens were to read it, they wouldn’t know any more about sex coming out of it than they did going in. It’s not graphic or descriptive in that way.
Second, the profanity. The f-word is used a few times, but not even enough that I remarked on it. I had to flip back through the book looking for it. There isn’t any particularly inventive cussing in there. And a lot of the genital-related profanity is in Spanish, so unless you speak Spanish colloquially or have gone out of your way to learn dirty words in Spanish, you’re going to miss it (and if you know what the words mean, it’s nothing you haven’t heard before).
Finally, the LGBTQ+ content is undeniable. But, Mike doesn’t even fully come to terms with his sexuality or get with a man until the very end of the book (if you are just counting the times he is old enough to consent). Like I said, that part is more implied than anything else. Honestly for a lot of the book while he was pursuing Remy, I was kind of wondering if the description I had read where it mentioned the LGBTQ+ content was wrong. Yes, two little boys do fondle each other and experiment with oral sex, but that is also not graphically described and it doesn’t really sound like either side reached completion. To me, that sounds more like childhood curiosity than a gay awakening. I do see why that part of it might be objectionable, but I wouldn’t really file it with homosexual content.
There were some descriptions of puppy mills that I found really upsetting because I don’t like hearing about animal cruelty, and those were graphic enough that it started to turn my stomach, but I am extra sensitive to those things. Also, I feel like if you haven’t researched puppy mills, a lot of that information would be new and extremely upsetting. I knew puppy mills were bad and some of the reasons why, but I learned A LOT more from this book. But none of the complaints seem to be about that part.
Honestly, I think the real elephant in the room (besides the obvious of having homosexuals depicted as existing and living normal lives) is the book’s critiques of race and class hierarchies in the US and the American Dream. This book is a coming of age story, and as Mike is trying to figure out who he really is, he is constantly faced with the inequality in this country. When he is with Freddy, who is black, he witnesses racist policing practices. Many of the guys he works with are undocumented immigrants and he sees how they face hate and discrimination by white Americans while also being held to lower wages than they deserve while a white person profits from their labor. They have no method to challenge these systems without the risk of being deported. He also witnesses the cycle of poverty and how hard it is for his family to break out of it despite their constant hard work and living an extremely frugal lifestyle. There is a scene where something goes wrong with one of Mike’s teeth. He can’t afford to see a dentist, so when the pain gets to be unbearable, he asks Freddy to pull the tooth for him with pliers. Freddy pulls the wrong tooth, and has to go back in to get the right one. That was hard to read (emotionally, again it wasn’t particularly graphic), but that kind of poverty is the reality for a lot of people in this country, so it’s worth not looking away in discomfort.
While he struggles to help his mom afford essentials, he watches while white men like Chaz, Goble, the families he works for, and even Nick to a certain extent, get rich through unfair and unscrupulous means and a lot of what seems like sheer luck rather than work. I think that is a critique of the American Dream. All of these people have what is considered to be that dream, but they are all deplorable in their own way. Chaz gets better toward the end of the book, but it’s not until after he loses the American Dream and ends up getting sober and living in his car while he tries to put his life back together.
In the way that this story depicts wage slavery and the plight of the working class, it reminds me very much of The Jungle, a book that greatly impacts Mike in the story (and a book that was banned in many places in the US throughout its history). The criticism of the hollowness of the American Dream reminded me a lot of The Great Gatsby. While this book is relatively new and definitely written in a modern style, it has echoes of some of the greatest literary classics that explore the rigged system in America.
The wealthy ruling class continues to benefit from the middle and lower classes (the majority) not questioning the system. This book questions the system and shows the flaw in the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality, and for that reason, I could see a lot of people having a problem with it.
On a less serious note, there was maybe some literary shade, which you know I love. While Mike is browsing books in the library one day, he picks up a book “by a woman named Hannah” based on the descriptions of the books, I’m pretty sure he means Kristin Hannah. While he’s looking at the book, Andrew comes by and says, “MFA fiction…I mean the writing’s good. Lyrical and all that. If it’s sentences you’re after. But so much of it just feels like affectation and craft to me” (47-48). And that’s honestly not all that exciting in terms of shade. I definitely understand what they’re talking about and I think MFA fiction is good to have, but I also think we need to have grittier and more realistic books like this one as well. BUT where it gets interesting is that Kristin Hannah wrote not one BUT TWO blurbs for this book. She has quotes on the front and back covers. And I don’t know the back story, maybe the authors are friends and he asked her permission to use her as the example or maybe she blurbed the book without fully reading it or maybe she thought it was funny, but I just wish I could have been privy to that conversation for sure. I feel like there’s a story there.
This book really got me thinking a lot about inequality in this country and about censorship. It offers a bleak look at what life can be like, but does have a happy ending so that you leave the book feeling empowered instead of depressed. I highly suggest you go out and read a banned book soon!