Author Doug Howery penned the novel with insight into his own struggle for sexual identity and personal tragedy. His mother committed suicide in 1982, blaming her two sons’ sexual identity in a letter and declaring herself a martyr for intolerance and social bigotry. She referred to her own sons as “Gutter Rats that Could Rot in Hell” and represents the hate and mistrust that have plagued
society.
REVIEWS
5 STARS
This book will stay with you long after you've finished it.
By Heather Gon August 13, 2014
Format: Kindle Edition
Verified Purchase
“The Grass Sweeper God” is a hard book to read, harder still to imagine someone living it. Ripped from the heart of what can only be an echo of personal experience and pain, this account speaks of unsinkable souls, lost identities and struggling to be who you are meant to be.
Being different in America has never been easy; being born different and in the wrong body in Solitude, Virginia in the 1950’s, is brutal. Smiley Hanlon lives day to day trapped in a Coal Miners town, buffeted by the Appalachian’s and generations of hate and mistrust. Any hint of being different, or being a ‘Freak’ is enough to ostracize you, pigeon hole you and make you a target for bullying – or worse. Backed by his best friend and protector, Lee Moore, Smiley made it through the days…until the night everything shattered. Chosen as the lead in a new town production called Dorothy of Oz Coal Camp, it seemed to be the beginning to acceptance and maybe even happiness, but the world is cruel and mankind even crueler. The triumph of the play decayed into a Coal Miners version of “Carrie” culminating in a tragic and horrific moment that would change both Smiley and Lee, forever.
This is their story, but it is also the story of so many others – both in this book and out of it. From the backwoods of Solitude to the sprawling cement gardens of New York City, this book spans 20 years and many lives. History comes alive with the recounting of the Stonewall Riots while the chilling fact that homosexuality was, and in many places still is, considered an abomination worthy of mental illness and subsequent shock treatment is disturbing and humbling. This tale breaks a heart, crushes a soul and somehow gives birth to a beautiful butterfly.
Doug Howery illustrates with words a pain few can comprehend, weaving this complex novel in scenes compelling and deep. There is a risk to his vision, words that leave little to the imagination – and honesty that begs the reader to look a bit deeper. This is an amazing book, one I highly recommend. Well written and poignant, no matter your genre preference – this novel should be in
your library.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The rainbow over the Dust Bowl of modern prejudice
ByAdam "Adam"on April 13, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition
The Grass Sweeper God is a beautiful novel about growing up 'different' in the 1950s and discovering the glitter and brightness of your dreams in a society that only had dark words and thoughts to offer you, or impose upon you.
So, imagine growing up 'trapped inside the wrong body ... a young man who wanted to be a young woman...' It's not easy today, imagine sixty years ago! What happens to our protagonist, tenderly named Smiley, (and here's a note to all those who think they can 'cure' an LGBT person) was sent to a school for people with mental disability, because his 'handicap was internal, because what he felt on the inside didn't match the outside - he was trapped in the wrong body,' and sentenced by a bigoted society to being used as 'the bull's eye in the kids' cross-hairs... the biggest... excrement of 'em all, really.'
Yet, this 'excrement' feels that there must be better in this world, it is something he feels against all the world is saying, something that comes from the soul, so, 'For some reason, he imagined an angel's harp singing in his ear, then remembered a drum roll like the devil talking.' This duplicity, this contrast between what Smiley's reality is and what it could be, runs through the whole books. The Grass Sweeper God reminds me of the best passages from Steinbeck, where the stark reality (here also taken up by the rural environment of the first chapters, the attention to animals, what they look, sound and smell like) in a place aptly called 'Solitude' (I think the reference to Soledad is clear), and the theme of 'being different' is brought into the contemporary world with the same mix of harsh realism on one side and touches of symbolism on the other:
'Outside, under the breezeway to the cafeteria that served as sixth-period study hall, Belch and Victor stopped them. "*** boy, you see this fist? I'm gonna pulverise you with it, pretty boy. Instead of bursting it into the locker, I'm gonna bust your mouth with it."'
Not long after, though, light comes into Smiley's life, in the physical shape of the Circus del Sol (again, pay attention to the name...), where Madame Luna allows Smiley to see beyond the immediate reality and constraints of his life in a beautiful moment when the situation creates one of those moments when, though the words you hear are what is being said, they mean something completely different to you:
'Do you, Smiley Hanlon, want to be a girl?'
'Yeah.'
'Not in this universe.'
Smiley had forgotten all about his question. Did she just ask me if I wanted to be a girl?
And here the beauty of acting, the experience not so much of 'presenting a fake character', but allowing someone who is inside of you to use your body to surface from deep inside you and smile to the world, becomes for Smiley a cathartic epiphany, that will, in the long term, change his life.
Solitude is deemed 'too tough' for Smiley, like it had for his mother (a hint at how hard it is to break patterns?) and he ends up in New York, where, things will change, but not necessarily for the better. In fact, if Steinbeck was concerned with the rural setting of the Dust Bowl, Doug Howery's 'Dust Bowl' covers both town and country and the Big Apple is 'colder' than Solitude, but at least, it allows Smiley to chase that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow which he novel mentions repeatedly. Smiley has now turned into the actress she had experienced being for the first time back in Solitude, and a convincing, persuasive one, while the narrator engages us on a play of words with religious meanings:
"Are you real?" the trick asked, "I mean, you are a woman, right?" She had to make a believer out of this one. Sixteen years pass, in the frustration of a New York where nothing changes, where The New York Times insists that 'Homosexuality' is still a 'concern', but.... on the horizon, a new light shines for Smiley, "The big, man-made neon star with an overlook towered on the hill about the valley of rapids, Virginia."
