The following book review was written for the Mark Twain Forum by Kevin Mac
Donnell.

~~~~~


_The Ballad of Huck & Miguel_. By Tim DeRoche. Illustrated by Daniel
Gonzalez. Redtail Press, 2018. Pp. 270. Hardcover. $26.95. ISBN
978-0-9992776-7-6.


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Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by
Kevin Mac Donnell


Copyright (c) 2018 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or
redistributed in any medium without permission.



Hardly a season passes without another Twain't springing up from the
fertile soil tilled so long ago by Mark Twain. His influence seems
everlasting, and his writings, biography, and cultural iconography continue
to inspire bountiful crops of works based upon his writings--borrowing
characters, titles, or plots--or stories featuring Twain himself as a
character. _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ alone has inspired attempts to
write sequels (beginning with Twain's own efforts), modern day adaptations,
pastiches, stage and musical and movie versions, and even comic books,
graphic novels, and one robotic version. These Twain'ts (they ain't Twain;
hence they are Twain'ts) have sometimes taken successful innovative
directions, like Jon Clinch's masterful _Finn_ (2007), that provided a
startling dark counterpoint to the original novel, illuminating the
character of Pap Finn and shedding light on Huck's maternity, or Tim
Champlin's recent time-traveling romps for young readers that insert modern
characters into reimagined adventures of Huck, Tom, and Becky. Some
Twain'ts succeed and some fail, and the vast majority fall somewhere in
between, so the arrival of a successful Twain't is cause for notice.


The partnership of Tim DeRoche (text) and Daniel Gonzales (illustrations)
is just such a success. In their deckle-edged, sturdily bound, beautifully
designed ballad, their Huck is what Twain's Huck was--an abused child
looking for a safe haven, who struggles and eventually finds humanity and
freedom. Like Twain's Huck, he finds these things through a series of
episodic adventures while escaping a hostile world in the company of
another outcast of society--an undocumented immigrant named Miguel. Their
adventures take place on the Los Angeles River, a concrete-lined urban
version of Twain's Mississippi River that is just as treacherous as Twain's
wild untamed land and waterscape. No attempt is made to imitate Twain's
original work chapter by chapter, or character by character, or even theme
by theme, or trope by trope--after all, it takes place more than 150 years
after Twain's adventure in a sky-scrapery West Coast environment, but the
reader will certainly notice that the more things change the more they stay
the same.


The story is told by Huck, whose language and childish innocence are a
modern reflection of Twain's Huck. Just as in Twain's original, the
characters don't all talk alike, nor do they try. Huck uses perfectly
descriptive words like rubbleshackle, flabbergassed, seriosity,
immediously, meamble, adjusticated, proxicality, satisfactual, and
earsplicing, and Miguel, who is this modern-day Huck's paternal mentor in
much the same way Jim mentored and protected Twain's Huck, often speaks
Spanish. Huck's Pap, as would be expected, speaks like a vulgarian, and
other characters speak in still other ways, befitting their roles.


Besides the language and viewpoint, the story itself is structured like
Twain's original, and is not merely episodic, but cinematic, a reminder
that Twain's original novel is a modern novel in every way--not because it
is ironic and part of the shift toward realism in its day, but in language,
viewpoint, and structure. Likewise, just as E. W. Kemble's sketchy
rough-hewn illustrations are integral to Twain's original, the forty-five
sharp linoleum block prints (linocuts) by Daniel Gonzales are integral to
DeRoche's tale. Skyscrapers loom overhead or in the background dwarfing
Huck and Miguel, light and dark are in constant contrast and remind the
reader that dangers lurk in the shadows, and the characters they meet seem
to lunge from the page at the reader exactly as they lunge at Huck and
Miguel.


The story begins in St. Petersburg, Missouri on the big river, when Pap
decides to head west to Los Angeles, lured by wonderful things he's heard
about the city, and takes Huck with him. Things don't work out for Pap, and
Huck ventures out on his own. He's chased by Mrs. Loftus with a broom when
she finds him foraging through her trash. He's fed by some kind-hearted
"Mexigrants" shortly before the reader is treated to Pap's rant about the
government letting "illegal Mexigrants" enter the country to steal jobs,
money, and food from people like him. Says Pap to Huck "Why, I was a-gonna
stop drinking and maybe go back down to the plant, but . . . they hired a
Mexigrant in [my] place. And I thinks to myself, what kind of man would I
be if I allowed myself to go beggin' back for my job from a man who would
hire an illegal Mexigrant" (32). Ten pages later Pap uses bungee-cords to
confine Huck to their camper, but Huck escapes out the roof vent. The
parallels to Twain's original story are clear to anyone who has read Twain,
but then Huck meets Tom Sawyer, who is African-American this time around,
and soon after they meet they break into an abandoned building and stumble
across Pap who is involved in a drug deal. They save him from a drug-dealer
who murders an undercover cop. The case is heard in Judge Thatcher's
courtroom and Huck and Tom get a $200,000 reward. Huck goes to live with
Miss Watson and Ms. Douglas, who are married, causing Huck to conclude they
might be thespians. He decides to run away, but during his escape he meets
Miguel, their horse-groomer, who convinces him to hang around. But Huck's
discomfort grows. The ladies take him to church where Huck says the "main
activity . . . was deciding when to stand and when to sit. Every time a
body would get comfortable in a particular position, everybody else would
make to change, and you'd have to follow them . . ." (84). Huck encounters
an automatic faucet in the skyscraper where Ms. Douglas works and assumes
the mirror over the faucet must be a two-way mirror and that an unseen man
on the other side turns the faucet on and off. Huck smiles and waves at the
unseen man behind the mirror but gets no response. But the reader will
respond to this lonely child trying to connect in a world that barely takes
notice of him.


Further along Huck encounters two reality show families, the Gallivanting
Grangerfords and the Schmoozing Shepherdsons, who engage in made-for-TV
rivalries. Huck at first falls for the manufactured drama but eventually
figures things out. The scenes conjure up the very real but equally
pointless deadly feud of the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons in Twain's
novel, as well as Twain's Huck being taken in by the circus performer.
Snakeskins and hooting owls make appearances and function in the story the
same way they do in Twain's original, and sure enough, Pap reappears, and
Huck notices his face is pale, a "fish-belly white" like Huck's Pap in
Twain's original story (119). Although the plot twists and turns in
directions quite different from Twain's original story, there are numerous
nods to Twain's original: Pap is angered when he learns that Huck is
learning to read, and covets the reward money. Huck notes that life is
lovely living on a raft. But this modern Pap does not die or disappear;
instead he continually reappears, even after Miguel "kills" him when Pap
attacks Huck with a knife. Miguel must flee, and Huck goes with him,
deciding that they should seek out Tom Sawyer and Aunt Polly for help.


Pap next reappears on a bridge and shoots at Huck and Miguel as they
continue their escape down the LA River, and Huck soon learns that his Pap
has stabbed Miss Watson and Ms. Douglas and that the police think Miguel
committed the crime and has kidnapped Huck. Miguel is bitten by a
rattlesnake and when Huck goes for help he encounters a street hustler
named The Duke and must first escape his clutches before returning to
Miguel with the anti-venom he set out to find. Pap finds them yet again and
Miguel saves Huck once again. Huck and Miguel are saved by some hippy
campers who take Huck shopping disguised as a girl, and a short time later
Huck and Miguel encounter a cult called The Flock, before they finally make
it to Aunt Polly's law office where Pap reappears and takes Huck, Miguel,
Aunt Polly, and Tom Sawyer hostage. They escape, but Tom is shot in the
leg. Like Twain's Jim, Miguel sacrifices his freedom to save Tom and is
captured, but--_deus ex machina_--who should appear in a big black car (the
machina) at the very last second but Judge Thatcher.


What becomes of Huck? Miguel? Miss Watson and Ms. Douglas? Pap? Does anyone
light out for the Territory? Those questions are answered in chapter 34,
How It All Come Out in the End, and chapter 35, Nuthin More to Write. The
fates of Huck, the thespians, and Pap will be revealed to those who read
this book, but the fate of Miguel is worth noting: Judge Thatcher, knowing
that Pap was responsible for the crimes attributed to Miguel, and that
Miguel saved Huck's life, arranges to allow Miguel to remain in the country
where he'll soon be reunited with his family. It's pretty to think so, but
contemplating such a happy ending would not be realistic under current
immigration laws and in the current political climate that has settled over
the United States like a black shroud. However, this story is explicitly a
ballad, and ballads lean folklorish and tilt toward the legendary and the
lyrical, and remind us how things should have been or still can be. This
ballad is satirical, funny, thrilling, hopeful, and human, a Twain't for
our times.