The following book review was written for the Mark Twain Forum by R. Kent
Rasmussen.
~~~~~

_The Actual & Truthful Adventures of Becky Thatcher_. By Jessica Lawson.
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2014. Pp. 218. Hardcover $16.99.
ISBN 978-1-4814-0150-0



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Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by R. Kent Rasmussen.


Copyright (c) 2015 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or
redistributed in any medium without permission.



 A popular form of literary pastiche--broadly speaking--is fleshed-out
stories about minor characters from classic works. Perhaps the best-known
example is Tom Stoppard's absurdist 1966 play _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Are Dead_, which reconstructs the backstage adventures of minor characters
in William Shakespeare's _Hamlet_ to show how they reached their unhappy
fates. Other notable examples include George Macdonald Fraser's novels
about Flashman, the sadistic bully in Thomas Hughes's 1841 novel _Tom
Brown's School Days_, and Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel _Wicked: The Life
and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West_ about the witch in L. Frank
Baum's _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz__ (1900). Fraser's and Maguire's books
both succeed in transforming nasty villains into sympathetic, even lovable,
characters.



Mark Twain's works have inspired many pastiches, but surprisingly few of
them have focused on his minor characters. Think for a moment of the
stories that could be written about _Connecticut Yankee_'s Clarence and
Sandy, _Pudd'nhead Wilson_'s Capello twins, and _Huckleberry Finn_'s king
and duke. That type of pastiche has not, however, been entirely neglected.
The best example is certainly Jon Clinch's brilliant 2007 novel _Finn_,
which tells the backstory of Huck Finn's depraved father. Though drawing on
characters and incidents from _Huckleberry Finn_, Clinch's novel remains
largely true to its source while offering an original story powerful enough
to stand entirely on its own. It does not, however, attempt to make Pap
more sympathetic. It actually makes him even more vile.



Another Mark Twain character who has inspired pastiche is _Tom Sawyer_'s
Becky Thatcher. She may be Mark Twain's most famous female character, but
that is probably true because so few other female characters stand out and
because of modern efforts to make Mark Twain's novel more appealing to
girls. Within the context of _Tom Sawyer_, Becky is a decidedly minor and
bland figure. When Mark Twain wrote _Huckleberry Finn_ he couldn't even
remember her name and called her "Bessie Thatcher." (He corrected that
error in proofs, but his change was not made in printed books until a
century later.) In an attempt to elevate Becky from the insipid character
of _Tom Sawyer_, Lenore Hart published the young-adult novel _Becky: The
Life and Loves of Becky Thatcher_ in 2007. Narrated by an elderly Becky
looking back on her youth, Hart's novel corrects the "lies" Sammy Clemens
(another of the novel's characters) told in his own book and continues
Becky's and Tom's stories into adulthood--something Clemens himself never
did. Hart's Becky not only mixes it up with the boys but also plays a
leading a role in the most dramatic action. On the whole, Hart succeeds at
giving the _Tom Sawyer_ story a strong feminist slant, but at the expense
of doing some damage to Mark Twain's characters and story lines, as I
pointed out in my Forum review of her book when it came out.



Now comes a new slant on Becky from first-time novelist Jessica Lawson in
_The Actual & Truthful Adventures of Becky Thatcher_. Apparently aimed at a
somewhat younger audience than Hart's book, Lawson's novel reveals little
evidence of having been influenced by the latter, but it carries Hart's
feminist perspective even further. Like Hart's story, Lawson's novel is
narrated by Becky herself, and her Becky is even more daring and
adventurous. However, it differs in being related by a young Becky shortly
after the events it describes. This puts the story in the same structural
category as the Mark Twain stories narrated by Huck Finn and gives Lawson
room for possible sequels, as it leaves her Becky eager for more adventures.



The early part of Lenore Hart's novel is a retelling of major incidents in
_Tom Sawyer_ from Becky's perspective. Lawson's book is less a retelling of
those incidents than a wholesale reimagining of the world of _Tom Sawyer_.
Her book reinvents Mark Twain's characters, places Becky in the midst of
most of the action, and moves the setting from the 1840s to 1860. Lawson
probably shifted the time period so she could insert an adult Samuel
Clemens in the story and remain, more or less, consistent with known facts
about his life. Her fictional Clemens shows up in St. Petersburg as the
pilot and caretaker of a steamboat stranded there for several weeks while
he awaits a vital replacement part for the boat. The real Clemens piloted
steamboats on the Lower Mississippi from 1857 until 1861, so it makes sense
to introduce him as an experienced pilot in 1860. He is not known to have
piloted a boat north of St. Louis, but that is little consequence in this
novel, as St. Petersburg itself seems to be _below_ St. Louis. Lawson has
Clemens staying in Tom Sawyer's home while he awaits the steamboat part,
allowing him to observe events, give advice to Becky, and jot down notes
for books he hopes to write. In a clever conceit, Lawson has Becky give him
ideas that readers familiar with Mark Twain's works will readily recognize.
It thus might be said that Becky is not only the most adventurous person in
St. Petersburg but is also the creator of some of Mark Twain's best writing
ideas.



Another feature both Hart's and Lawson's novels have in common is their
emasculation of Tom Sawyer and improvement of his half-brother, Sid. Hart's
book makes Becky more daring than Tom and has her marry Sid, but it leaves
Tom with positive traits and makes it clear that Becky has always loved
him. Lawson's book goes much further, making Becky adventurous to the point
of dangerous recklessness, while reducing Tom to a cowardly and universally
disliked snitch inclined to wet his pants when frightened and to flee at
the first sign of danger. In contrast, she makes Sid a strong, bold, and
wholly admirable character and, curiously, also makes him older than Tom.
By the end of the story, Tom achieves a small measure of redemption but
remains a pitifully insipid weakling whom no reader could possibly admire.



In his Forum review of scholar Bill Macnaughton's 2013 novel _Mark Twain's
Civil War_, Kevin Mac Donnell defined a "Twain't" as any book using Mark
Twain himself or his writings or characters as a touchstone. After
outlining possible variations of Twain'ts, he concluded that "whoever their
authors and whatever their intent they all share one common trait: whatever
they might be, they just ain't Twain." Why, then, should any person who
studies or admires Mark Twain want to read such books?



I would argue that the best Twain'ts can be as valuable as good scholarship
by providing insights that purely scholarly writing might hesitate to
suggest. Clinch's _Finn_, for example, raises challenging points about
_Huckleberry Finn_ rarely discussed elsewhere, such as how Pap came to die
in the floating house, what made him such a despicable character, whether
Huck's attempt to fake his own death would really have fooled anyone, and
exactly who Huck's mother was. The explanations _Finn_ provides may come
out of Clinch's own imagination, but they are plausible and do no major
violence to Mark Twain's work, leaving us to think more deeply about what
is behind _Huckleberry Finn_. Some Twain'ts, however, may merely irritate
us.



Lenore Hart's novel about Becky Thatcher seems to occupy a middle ground in
this regard. It departs further from Mark Twain's fiction than Clinch's
_Finn_, but her basic premise--that Sam Clemens lied about her in _Tom
Sawyer_ gives her book latitude to take liberties. After all, even Huck
Finn admitted that _Tom Sawyer_ didn't tell the whole truth. After reading
Hart's novel, it's conceivable that a reader going back to _Tom Sawyer_
might ask if it's possible there is more to Becky Thatcher than Mark Twain
is letting on. That sort of question, however, is not one that readers of
Jessica Lawson's novel are likely to ask.



Lawson's _The Actual & Truthful Adventures of Becky Thatcher_ is a much
greater departure from Mark Twain than Clinch's and Hart's books.
Nevertheless, it may still offer insights into Mark Twain's modern readers.
Why, one wonders, would anyone writing a novel involving one of the most
beloved characters in American literature do so much to demean that
character? In Lawson's novel, Tom Sawyer isn't merely a sniveling coward,
he's almost repulsive. Is Lawson's book a misandrist rebuke of _Tom Sawyer_
designed to put down all men while raising the novel's female characters?
I'm inclined to think not; otherwise, how does one account for Sid's almost
exalted status in the novel? Morever, if the book is an expression of a
feminist point of view, it has a most peculiar contradiction. Note Becky's
strange words that open chapter 1:



"My left leg twitched at the tickle of another night-boy. Hidden by the
wide trunk of a river sycamore, I shifted in my crouch and reached a hand
inside Jon's overalls to trap and smack the creepy skitter. ..."



What in the world is a young girl's hand doing inside a boy's clothes? A
page or two later, we learn that Jon is the name of Becky's dead older
brother, whose overalls she is wearing. Against her parents' objections,
Becky prefers to wear the clothes of her beloved brother. Moreover, she
always carries a bag of marbles he had owned, believing that through them
she can channel his thoughts. Can Becky be considered a feminist
protagonist if much of the time she thinks she's acting on a boy's advice,
while getting her courage from carrying her brother's balls in a sack?



Although Becky has a good relationship with her loving father, Judge
Thatcher, she is estranged from her mother, who has gone into a shell since
Jon died a year or so earlier. Becky laments that after her brother died,
her mother forgot her existence. A lot seems to be going on in Becky's
family. Does any of it have anything to do with Lawson's unsavory depiction
of Tom Sawyer?



Considering that this book is aimed at young readers, it is also odd that
it has something near an obsession with bodily fluids. It contains repeated
allusions to characters peeing in their pants, spitting, pooping,
scratching "skitter" (presumably "skeeter") bites, and picking scabs. The
vile schoolmaster Mr. Dobbins calls his pupils "maggots," and Becky
delights in imagining mosquitoes laying eggs in an open wound he has
incurred. Strong stuff for young readers. There's no Injun Joe in this
novel, but Dobbins turns out to be almost equally nasty, and there are also
some other loathsome villains. I hope it doesn't spoil readers' enjoyment
of the book to reveal that Becky's courage and spunkiness triumph over all
adversities.



It's unlikely admirers of Mark Twain will find much reason to read Lawson's
novel. How might others respond to the book? Judging by customer reviews on
Amazon.com, it seems to be a hit among young readers. A typical comment
calls the book "a fun-filled, rollicking romp of adventure," adding "Wow!
Becky Thatcher is one fearless, spunky, and quick on her feet kind of a
girl ... She is also feisty, fun, compassionate, and struggling with the
withdrawal of her mother from society, and from her, while dealing with the
loss of her brother in the best way she knows how."



Can there be any harm in letting young people read such a book? Perhaps
not. I am, however, concerned about the way Simon & Schuster is packaging
the book. The firm sells it as a stand-alone title but also offers it in a
very attractive boxed set that includes _Tom Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry
Finn_. Each volume in the set has a similarly designed cover with matching
typography. Anyone examining the set might think all three books were
created together. Aside from the authors' names on the books, there is
nothing to warn readers the books were written by different authors in
different centuries. Consequently, any child reading _Tom Sawyer_ and then
turning to the Becky Thatcher book-or t'uther way around--is going to be
bewildered. Any child reading the Becky book first might not even want to
read Mark Twain's books, and that possibility is a shame.