Out of Time. (Side Streets). Peter McPhee. Toronto, ON: James Lorimer, 2003. 163 pp., pbk. & cl., $6.95 (pbk.), $14.94 (cl.). ISBN 1-55028-796-6 (pbk.), ISBN 1-55028-797-4 (cl.). Subject Headings: Teenagers and death-Juvenile fiction. Suicide-Juvenile fiction. Grades 7-10 / Ages 12-15. Review by Joan Marshall. * /4

excerpt:

None of them had seen much of Sarah then, and there was constant speculation about who she was hanging out with. Jamie said he saw her driving in a car with Ron Freis and his gang. Both she and Eilean had found the idea of Sarah hanging out with that crowd impossible to believe. When school began in September it took weeks before the old Sarah finally re emerged. Then something terrible happened. Sarah was caught with drugs at school and somehow ended up in hospital. Cathy never found out why and she hadn't been allowed to visit. Only Eilean knew what had really happened and she refused to say anything on the subject. All kinds of rumours flew around the school, most of them ridiculous. Sarah returned to school after a few weeks, looking paler than ever. Slowly, the little gang began to assemble again and Sarah seemed almost normal. But there was something in her eyes after that, something terribly sad.

The other change in Sarah was a new obsession with death.

Out of Time begins with the suicide of teenage Jamie, a boy who is tired of being bullied, so tired that he easily buys into the idea of a suicide pact among friends. Sarah and Cathy, Jamie's friends, also try to end their lives that day. Sarah hangs herself in the school counsellor's office, and Cathy tries to throw herself down Chinaman's Gorge. Both are rescued, but, at the end of the book, Sarah is still in a coma. Eilean, their former friend, whose mother had herself committed suicide when Eilean was a young child, is the one who finds Cathy at the gorge after a frantic search with the help of Ron, the school bully who has made Jamie's life impossible to bear. She also saves Ron's life as he nearly kills himself with his father's gun in a drunken stupor. It turns out that Sarah had spent the summer with Ron, challenging him to daredevil activities, and that Sarah had been pregnant with his baby. Although Eilean had distanced herself from Sarah, whose drug taking and obsession with suicide became excessive, it never crossed Eilean's mind that Sarah, Jamie and Cathy would act on their depressed thoughts. When Eilean tries to get Sarah help through the school counsellor, the police are called and Sarah is expelled.

     The usual plot overload and character stereotypes beset this teen problem novel. Would Eilean essentially live by herself with her only parent out of town so much? Would the school staff, determined to protect Eilean, have left her alone for even a moment, let alone long enough for her to leave the building? It seems odd that Sarah's friends would not have known about her involvement with Ron and his gang. Having called Cathy off a cliff where she wavered with one foot in the air, about to jump, is it likely that Eilean would take Cathy to a coffee shop instead of to a hospital emergency or to Cathy's family? Some of these details seem contrived in order to fit everything possible about suicide into the story: the poor parenting styles, the absent parent, the gun collector, the parent who has committed suicide, the death of a beloved grandparent, bullying, pregnancy, miscarriage, drug taking.

     Trying to fit every possible problem into a short novel doesn't leave much room for character development. The adults remain stereotypes, and the teenagers don't fare much better. Their characters are shown through flashbacks as emotionally stricken teens obsess about incidents in the past: could have, would have, should have. But didn't. There is a great deal of angry, shouted dialogue, huffy stomping off, and moody self centeredness. It's difficult to become interested in characters this flat.

     The language is pedestrian and plodding with too much telling, not enough showing. (Stop it! She told herself. Stop thinking about them! It won't do any good now. But she couldn't stop the questions: Why did they do it? Didn't they know how stupid, how useless it is to die this young?) The point of view changes chapter by chapter from one teen to the other.

     Although the setting is Calgary, the city scenes could be taking place in any large North American city. The scenes of Cathy's hike into the mountains to die are better as the gorgeous scenery contrasts with her black mood.

     One of the “Side Streets” series published by Lorimer, this book seems to be written for and marketed to younger teens who will be titillated by the theme and supposedly drawn into reading through exposure to the series. Particularly troublesome is the self confirming picture younger readers will receive about the incompetence of adults and the impossibility of working out problems that fester, boil over and lead to the careful planning of suicide. To McPhee's credit, as in real life, there is no happy or even resolved, ending.

     If suicide is an issue that you think will entice students to read, lend them Richard Peck's Remembering the Good Times or Katherine Holubitsky's Alone at Ninety Foot. If edgy teen angst will attract your students, they might be interested in Barbara Haworth Attard's Theories of Relativity or Dennis Foon's Skud.

Not Recommended.

Joan Marshall is the teacher librarian at Fort Richmond Collegiate in Winnipeg, MB.

To comment on this title or this review, send mail to cm@umanitoba.ca.

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Published by The Manitoba Library Association ISSN 1201-9364

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