Charles Synyard (@CharlesSynyard)

“Not everything gets fixed. And you can’t wait around expecting everything to get fixed when you don’t really have control over that. ”You can’t control other people. You can only control yourself. “The happiest endings are the ones where you learn no one—not a mom or a dad or other people you know or don’t know—can dictate who you can be or shrink your importance to the world. ”So I guess this is my happy ending: I learned to stand on my own.” (335-336) Is this what others call dao? Finished a powerful, sanguine book wrapped in the most deceptively cute cover: The First Magnificent Summer (2023), by R. L. (Rachel) Toalson. https://www.racheltoalson.com/books/the-first-magnificent-summer/ https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-First-Magnificent-Summer/R-L-Toalson/9781665925501 Strongly recommended for serious lit lovers. Young readers will likely enjoy too, but only recommended with parental guidance. An unguided reader could be led astray, as I’ll explain. I probably wouldn’t have taken The First Magnificent Summer when I found it in a little free library (along with sequel Something Maybe Magnificent, expect a review of that too soon, and Debbi Michiko Florence’s Sweet and Sour, recently reviewed), had the cover art not been so cheerful. A reflective tween girl, restfully recording her thoughts as the clan have some summer fun! I didn’t have eyes for her Womanhood Supplies just then, but the travail around her first period sure gets mention. Boy (or prehaps Girl), was that misleading! Twelve-year-old Victoria “Tori” Reeves (she’s trying to drop the nickname) is not having what you’d call a magnificent summer. She, older brother Jack, and younger sister Maggie, have not seen their father in over two years—he left their mom for another woman, and now has a growing family with her. Now, they will spend a whole month with Dad, starting with an epic Texas to Ohio road trip. Victoria plans to win him back by showing how she’s grown, her wit and intelligence, being all smiles and never pouting: “The No-Fail Plan to Win Dad Back” (brings back memories of the bulleted plans I wrote at her age, like for what to do if I won the Peanut M&M’s contest). Firstly, you have to get to know Victoria Reeves to understand the story. ”Truthfully, I wonder if forgetting is the brain’s way of protecting the heart from something painful. But that sounds like something Virginia Woolf might say. (I brought the fourth volume of her diaries with me this summer, snuck it right off Mom’s bookshelf. I don’t think she’ll notice, but it did make my suitcase noticeably heavier.) Virginia Woolf also said, ‘Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded,’ which is why I keep a detailed journal. I’ve brought two blank composition books with me for the trip, plus the six Memaw gave me, and I’ll record dialogue and events as accurately as I can. But I’m only human, so of course the following pages, which I’m calling ’The First Magnificent Summer with Dad’ (because hopefully there will be more) with the subtitle ‘A Record of Victoria Reeves, twelve years old’ (in case anyone finds them after I’m gone), will be full of opinions and one-sided stories and hopefully absolutely no surprises because I don’t like surprises, not even the good ones.” (17) Victoria, twelve, is reading not just Virginia Woolf’s fiction, she’s bringing along a volume of her diaries for summer reading! (I’ve only read To the Lighthouse; it didn’t leave a major impression.) She is records the day’s happenings fastidiously in a journal, bringing EIGHT composition books for a single month. And… she knows she has biases as an observer, that there are other ways to see the events she describes. She has some consciousness of how stories reflect narratives; seeing how the events of Victoria’s “First Magnificent Summer with Dad” feed into, or stray from her and others‘ narratives, and Victoria’s awareness that they do so, was one of the most rewarding parts of my read. Precocious! It’s pretty based to throw a girl like this in front of a reader, and say, THIS is who my story’s about. If Victoria Reeves sounds out there yet very real, it’s because there’s a lot of the author in her. Like Victoria, she was reared “in small-town Texas. In a home surrounded by cornfields,“ and if you‘d asked, ”would tell you exactly what she wants to be: an author.” She recounts, “I carried my writing utensils (always-sharpened pencils and stapled pads of blank paper) everywhere… I became a documentarian. I took my job seriously.” https://www.racheltoalson.com/about/ One hyper-bookish, introspective girl! For a budding writer, she has great difficulty communicating, however. Her dad, by contrast, is always playing games and expects others to play along—and when they aren’t having fun, or mind the 1,000+ mile car trip in the sweltering back row, that’s pouting. Victoria hates the constant bologna sandwiches? A picky eater. And, once in Ohio, if she doesn’t like the things Dad’s liked since he was little, like camping for weeks on end, swimming in a muddy swimming hole and plunging down the slide, that makes her a priss who thinks she’s above having fun with her siblings. “‘Your mama probably lets you kids walk around pouting about everything. Getting your way all the time… I won’t tolerate that kind of crap this summer.’ “Dictation note required here: He didn’t say ‘crap’, but I’m not allowed to write bad words, and even though this journal is my private possession and I can write whatever I want, I choose not to use bad words. I think they’re unnecessary for getting your point across. For example: I know Dad was mad. I could see it (1) in his eyes, (2) in the way his shoulders tightened up, (3) in the line of his lips, and (4) in the fierce tone of his words. No need for swearing.” (82-83) The only time the Victoria does use that bad word, is when her dad sums up everything since he left his first wife for Lisa with the familiar, two-word bumper sticker phrase. Dad, it seems, rarely considers his past wrongs. Since they weigh so little on his conscience, he puts no effort into making amends. He can’t get why his first brood aren’t thrilled to see him once more! And another sticking point that starts the summer together off badly: Dad brings his new family—Lisa, three-year-old Anna, and baby Devon, “The Replacements”—along (he had told Memaw, Victoria’s mom’s mom, that he wouldn’t), and they sit in front on the way there. Once they go camping, they live in an air-conditioned RV, while his first three kids share a tent outside. Victoria’s dad lacks the imagination to even see why anyone else would want it another way—and Victoria is too sensitive a girl to talk back and contest what he says. When they’re at the swimming hole, Victoria sits by the shore, writing in her notebook. Dad says, “‘You’ll write away your whole summer.’ “He didn’t think that was a good thing either. “‘I just like to write,’ I said. My voice sounded thick and wobbly. “Dad’s eyes narrowed even more. ‘What are you writing in there?’ “He wasn’t really interested. So I didn’t really answer. ‘Things. Stories. Observations.’ I added: ‘An opus about growing up.’ “What could have possibly possessed me to use a word like ‘opus’? I don’t know. Maybe I wanted him to think I’m smart. Maybe I was showing off. Maybe it was a way to prove that I’m all grown up. “Every reason is as sad as another, especially when Dad opened his mouth again. “‘You think you’re so smart,’ he said. (It’s not a good thing to think you’re so smart). ‘You think you’re too old to swim in a pool?’ (It’s not a good thing to think you’re too old to swim in a pool. My list was growing.) ‘You think you’re too old to play with your family? (It’s not a good thing to think you’re too old to play with your family.) He paused, like he was waiting for an answer, but I knew he didn’t want an answer. He wanted me to listen. So I did, trying not to let his words too deep inside. Dad pointed to Jack. ‘Your brother’s older than you, and he’s out there in the pool, playing… You think you’re so grown up… But you’re still just a little girl.’ “He swam away before I could say anything. Not that I had anything to say, because if I opened my mouth, the only thing I’d do was cry, and that would just make everything worse…” (140-141) They are father and daughter, but he asks questions, yet doesn’t really want answers, which she isn’t inclined to give, knowing he wouldn’t understand them, anyway: “opus”! She exists on a different plane from her crude, beer-in-hand Homo Americanus dad. Victoria doesn’t seem like the kind of person who could set her dad straight—and amazingly, she never does. The story concludes in an unconventional way. Usually, it’s a given that the one who’s in the right, will be SHOWN to be in the right in some outward demonstration. Yet, that NEVER happens here. By the end, Victoria has been badly humiliated more than once, and while her dad’s still unhappy with how the summer went, there’s never a moment where she gives him a piece of her mind, and says much back. Yet, she is still triumphant, and comes off as the winner of her “magnificent” summer. How autistic is that? It literally is. Toalson bills herself as “Autistic author writing about the intersection of neurodivergence, tramua, feminism, and mental illness.” The art of Victoria on the road trip is for a Spotify playlist she made including SEVENTY of the lead’s favorite songs! ‘Nuff said (I thought the road trip was mostly silent suffering). Is Victoria Reeves an undiagnosed autist? Speaking of feminism, Victoria has already encountered feminist writers and ideas, and on returning to her sympathetic mom and Memaw, she is given a journal filled with quotes from Simone de Beauvoir, Margaret Atwood, and the like (328-329). She looks forward to reading The Handmaid’s Tale when she turns sixteen, and sees her experiences through a feminist lens. Some details fit that narrative. Dad was cold toward her over the summer, and relies on her and Maggie do dishes and laundry, while letting Jack go fishing with him. Jack was a “growing boy”, while ”Tori” taking extra portions would make her fat. But others don’t. Dad fawns over his new girl Anna, and relates better with Maggie. He orders Lisa around, but she seems to genuinely enjoy her tradwife life, and there‘s rarely friction or secrets between them. He asks Jack to take down the tent at summer’s end. Does he see that men have to do their share too, in a different way? His misdeeds stem from a boorish character, not conscious prejudice. (And, can’t her dad’s original family and The Replacements become more friendly? Lisa is prone to hysterics and overcomplacent, but she gives our lead some of her Womanhood Supplies when she runs out, and says if she needs something, she has only to ask. She never does. Meanwhile, Dad shows pride in Jack, while Maggie starts to play and have fun with Anna. Might they have grown more friendly… has Victoria not been so pouty?) When Dad tells her, “If I had my way, you would never write again,” she confesses, “Somewhere in all the ruminating… the if I had my way got lost. It became, You will never write again,” (322). She knows it’s part of a narrative to her, a desire becoming a demand ripe to be defied. Victoria getting her first period during the road trip adds a major problem on top of all else. Women are mostly reticent about what happens to them every month, but it gets plenty of attention here. And at one point, Victoria asks her journal ”Why do they call it a menstrual period? ”Is it because even this—a girl’s violent shove into Womanhood—belongs to men? A girl gets her first menstrual period, and instead of it being ‘welcome to the world of a woman,’ it’s ‘welcome to the world of a woman defined by men. Dictated by men. Made by men.’” (143) She resolves, “I think I’ll start calling it womenstruation” (145), although she just keeps calling it the Visitor. But I wonder, didn’t she look it up in the dictionary? Guess she didn’t bring the one she discovered pusillanimous in (233). My Merriam-Webster’s gives the etymology as from the Latin mensis, month. The telling definition: “a discharging of blood, secretions, and tissue debris from the uterus that recurs in nonpregnant breeding-age primate females at approximately monthly intervals and that is considered to represent a readjustment of the uterus to the nonpregnant state following proliferative changes accompanying the preceding ovulation” The jacket flap asks, “And when Dad does the worst thing ever, she realizes she has a decision to make: Will she let a man define her?” As women’s bodies have to “readjust… to the nonpregnant state” each month, while men keep being the same, women are arguably more defined by men than the reverse. And “breeding age primate females”! Victoria sees her period as a step into womanhood, but doesn’t link it with her sexual nature; it’s left out in her definition (103-104), but she often mentions Jesse Cox, a boy she clearly likes. Nor is the author a walking stereotype of feminism. She’s a mother of six, all boys by her husband! Toalson is firmly on the left side of the culture war, and frets about book bans at libraries; but The First Magnificent Summer has great merit, or the sort collection policies should favor, and would fail to be banned if someone tried. Toalson says they allow their boys “to watch or view whatever they want, as long as it’s geared to their age,” and may want to watch together and follow up with conversations. https://www.expressnews.com/lifestyle/article/ya-author-rachel-toalson-17862110.php This seems a good strategy. Young readers may miss agendas that are slipped in, and need to be shown how to catch them, and judge the author’s message against facts and right. Toalson shows that her story can be read from more than just the feminist view. See the quote at the top. Victoria has been wronged by her father, but expands her conclusion to include not letting moms, as well as dads, define who you are. Ditto Toalson in her Author’s Note, addressed to all children of divorce. This book bespeaks an almost Eckhartian confidence in the dignity of the self, in its lesson that outward shows of winner and loser are not decisive. For all that, apart from a mention of the Waco siege that dates the story to the mid-90s, Dad taking the Lord’s name in vain, and the mention of The Handmaid’s Tale with its theocrat bad guys, religion gets no attention in Victoria’s unchurched life. But on reading, I mused: while we recognize nobility in Jesus’s silence before Herod Antipas, Herod, like Victoria’s dad when she doesn’t talk back, was too worldly and dull to see it himself. #RLToalson #RachelToalson #TheFirstMagnificentSummer #divorce #fatherwound #swearing #cussing #period #menstruation #womanhood #growingup #dao #tao #autism #feminism #selfrespect #middlegrade #childrensliterature #childrensbooks #literature #books