Stuff I've Been Reading: My Abandonment

My Abandonment

Peter Rock

Peter Rock's My Abandonment is the first book read in my Book Club by Proxy project.  That's the one where I read other people's book club books for them.  AmyH told me about this book.  I probably wouldn't have bothered except the book was only 225 pages long and the blurb on the back sounded interesting.

My Abandonment is the story of a thirteen year-old girl named Caroline who lives in the woods outside of Portland with her father.  Caroline and her father get by pretty well when you consider that they live in a hobbit hole.  Their lives are shattered when a jogger stumbles upon their home and reports them to the authorities.

I must admit that this book took me by surprise.  I read it as a joke and wasn't expecting much, but My Abandonment was an exciting, well-written story that was a pleasure to read.  It was a damn good book.  It's actually one of the highlights of my literary year.  I would highly recommend this book to you, AmyH, or anyone else with a few hours to spare and an interest in quality reading.

What follows is the portion of the post dealing with cheating at book club.  It starts out with my in-depth synopsis of My Abandonment's eight chapters and then ends with a couple talking points that should convince others that you've read the book.  The thing to remember here is that what follows will absolutely ruin the book for you.  Do not proceed if you have any interest in reading the book for yourself.

The Happy Days in the Forest Park (p. 1 - 48): Caroline and her father live in the woods outside of Portland.  Caroline is thirteen; her father is a veteran who has bad dreams about helicopters.  They've got an underground dwelling full of sleeping bags, a chess board, and Caroline's toy horse, Randy.  They keep to themselves, but once a week they put on their city clothes and go into town.  They go to the library, the Safeway, and stop by the post office for the father's government check.  One day a jogger accidentally stumbles upon their camp while Caroline is lounging in a tree.  The jogger tries to talk to Caroline, but she stays in her tree and hides.  The jogger returns a few days later with the police, a canine unit, and a man named Jim Harris.  Caroline's father is arrested and Mr. Harris takes Caroline.

Getting Caught and Put in the Building (p. 49 - 76): Mr. Harris drives Caroline into the city.  During the drive, she makes reference to a foster family and a younger sister.  Mr. Harris turns Caroline over to a woman named Jean Bauer at some sort of detention center.  This woman cleans the girl up and gives her some new clothes.  Then she subjects Caroline to a series of physical and psychological exams.  She determines that Caroline is is good shape for a girl who has been living in the woods for years.  Miss Bauer eventually returns Randy the Toy Horse and gives Caroline her own room...one that looks out on her forest.

Living on the Farm (p. 77 - 110): After a chapter apart, Caroline and her father are reunited outside the detention center.  The police drive them out to a horse farm owned by a man named Mr. Walters.  He's agreed to employ Caroline's father on his farm.  In addition to the job, Mr. Walters is allowing Caroline and her father to stay in the bunkhouse on his property.  Things are looking up.  Caroline meets some neighbor boys and thinks they might turn out to be friends.  She gets her first bicycle.  She's excited about starting real school in the fall.  Her father isn't doing as well, though.  He starts to get paranoid and begins to imagine people spying on them from behind hay bales.  He tells Caroline to pack her old backpack.  As the chapter ends, the two sneak out to the bus stop in the middle of the night.

Living on the Streets of the City (p. 111 - 134): Caroline and her father head back to the woods, but that turns out to be a bad idea.  They then decide to hide out in public...where they walk on opposite sides of the road and communicate with umbrella signals.  Caroline gets a haircut and dye-job.  She and her father set up camp in an abandoned hotel.  Caroline's father starts doing "deliveries" for a mysterious man named Vincent.  You can tell he's a villain because he has a pointy beard.  Guys with pointy beards are always bad.  Caroline gets recognized by Taffy, a girl she met at the detention center in Part Two.

Escaping Down Through the Snow (p. 135 - 160): Caroline's father is getting even more paranoid, and he decides they need to hop a train out of town.  The only thing is that he's never done it before and he falls off the train as he tries to board.  They opt for a bus.  Caroline's father gets angry at her when she talks with a woman on the bus.  He forces the bus driver to let them off in the middle of nowhere on a snowy night.  They sleep outdoors and try to keep warm at a thermal spring.  The next day they break into a cabin.  Caroline recognizes all the books in one of the rooms.  She used to have the same books when she lived with her foster family.  They spend the night in the cabin and then use snowshoes and a sled to travel to the nearby town of Sisters, a town that Caroline's father seems to know.

Losing Father in the Cave (p. 161 - 192): Caroline and her father hike out of town, but are soon lost in a sudden snowstorm.  They stumble upon a yurt and join a woman and very weird boy inside.  The four of them spend the night in the yurt.  In the morning Caroline and the very weird boy go out for a sled ride and the two adults stay inside to talk things over.  The woman eventually comes out wearing a wig and Caroline's father's backpack.  She gives Caroline's snowshoes to the very weird boy and the two of them head off.  Caroline goes back into the yurt to find out what's going on.  Her father is dead.  It appears that he has been electrocuted or burned by the yurt's heating mechanism.  Not knowing what to do, she puts her father's body on the sled and wanders around in the snow.  She stumbles upon a keg party taking place in a cave.  She hides her father's body and joins the party.  She waits until the party breaks up and then brings her father's body into the cave.  Sitting by the fire, Caroline thinks back and remembers when she first met her father.  She remembers how he took her from her foster parents' backyard in Boise.  She remembers how he handcuffed her in a hole while he joined the search party to look for her.  She remembers how he changed her named to Caroline.  She remembers how she used to see her picture on missing posters.

Boise (p. 193 - 210): Having left the man's body in the cave, Caroline heads for Boise.  She walks around freely, knowing that nobody will recognize her now that's she's grown and looks different.  She walks by her old house and then goes to her former elementary school where she sees her sister Della.  She follows Della for awhile and then goes over to a cemetery.  She can't find the headstones she's looking for.  She takes the bus to the mall where a couple girls follow her into the bathroom and try to talk with her.  They run for their mother when they notice that Caroline's foot is bleeding all over the place from frostbite.  Caroline runs out the emergency exit.

There is Not Much to Say (p. 211 - 225): Time has gone by.  Caroline has left Boise and returned to the town of Sisters.  She gets her GED and studies at the community college.  She becomes a part-time librarian.  She also gets a job as caretaker at a rich man's house.  He's rarely there and doesn't mind that Caroline lives in a yurt on his property.  She compiles her thoughts and journals into eight sections and types them up at the library.  She finds out that Randy the Toy Horse is actually a Chinese acupuncture model.

Something to Discuss in Your Book Club:  Perhaps the book's most important sentence takes place on page 222 when Caroline writes about the book she's writing about her experiences with her father.  She says, "I remember the conversations as best as I can.  If I make up words he says at least they're close or taken from his notebook.  I stitch it together and I only add what I have to.  If I don't remember something I skip over it and leave it out."  Is Caroline a reliable narrator?  Do these sentences change your thoughts on what you've read in the earlier chapters?  What do you think Caroline added to her book?  What do you think she skipped over or left out?

Smart-Sounding Thing to Memorize and Regurgitate at Your Book Club:  Did anyone else here find this book reminiscent of the work of independent film director, Kelly Reichardt?  I certainly did.  Rock's Portland-area setting combined with his protagonist's fascination with canines, brought to mind Reichardt's 2008 film, Wendy & Lucy.  Should a film adaptation of My Abandonment be in the works, I think she should definitely be in the running to direct.  I can already see Will Oldham in the role of "Nameless".  I love the irony of a man with so many nicknames portraying a nameless character.  Hah hah!