Skin Deep

Addressing the growing presence of hate groups in modern society, a chilling novel explores the seduction of a high school student by a neo-Nazi group and the attraction that would make him a member. By the author of Miriam's Well.

Grade 8 Up?The challenge of growing up in a fatherless, female-dominated home are not enough to make Dan a skinhead. He can even survive the abrupt move to a cramped apartment in Boulder and to spending his senior year in a strange school, so that his two older sisters can attend the University of Colorado. But, when multiethnic quotas bar him from both making the swim team and from landing a job, Dan's tolerance reaches its limit. Angry and frustrated, he begins to succumb to the seductive, machismo posturing of the local skinheads. He cooperates with them and adopts their dress code, while never truly buying into their racist creed. Not realizing that he has become their pawn, he soon finds himself at the center of a controversy for wearing a swastika emblazoned shirt to school. Dan's eldest sister, an articulate and idealistic law student, steps in to voice her repulsion at the group's philosophy and violent methods, while passionately defending their right to free speech. This dramatic shift of focus introduces some extremely important issues but drops them in midair. Then in a rapid-fire series of events, including the kidnapping of Dan's girlfriend's adopted, Vietnamese brother and the reappearance of Dan's father, the young man comes to see the error of his ways. Ruby has researched her target group well, but the complexities of the skinhead movement as a whole are included in a haphazard way. In addition, this already complicated plot is embellished with some frivolous subplotting, while more significant and interesting characters (most notably a female skin and a wise old tatoo artist) are not fully developed. This novel simply tries to do too much. The scenes with action and suspense are well done and will hold the attention of many teens. Buy this one, but don't forget Jay Bennett's far simpler Skinhead (Watts, 1991).?Margaret Cole, Oceanside Library, NY
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ruby (Miriam's Well) examines the nature of hatred in this often heavy-handed story about a teen who becomes a neo-Nazi skinhead. Dan Penner grows quickly embittered after moving to Boulder, Colo., despite a romance with fellow high school senior Laurel Grady. First, he loses a well-earned position on the school swim team because the coach has to reserve spots for the "my-norities" ("'These days,' Coach said with a chuckle, 'every team's gotta look like the goddam United Nations'"); next, he can't get a job because local business owners say they can't hire any more whites ("Sorry, son. I'm only hiring WOG's... Worthy Oriental Gentlemen"). When Dan interrupts two skinheads bashing an Iranian clerk at a convenience store, he is taken in by them and begins to feel that they are his new family. Dan himself is charged with the beating and slips deeper and deeper into the skinhead society; meanwhile Laurel (whose family includes two adopted minority children) finds herself facing many questions about love, freedom, and standing up for her beliefs. The conflicts heat up rapidly, and the ending is satisfying without offering easy answers. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Gr. 8-12. This chilling book is successful on a variety of levels. Ostensibly, it is a novel about the frustrated new kid in town, Dan Penner, who falls in love with perky, popular senior Laurel Grady, yet destroys the relationship when he joins a neo-Nazi skinhead group. The evolution of Dan's decline to skinhead is what gives this novel dimension. The frustration of not having money, opportunities, or attention from anyone but Laurel gradually erodes Dan's self-esteem. As his life becomes more and more dismal, he easily falls for the neo-Nazi rhetoric of white supremacy: African Americans and foreigners are taking all the jobs, Hitler is a role model, we need to create the pure white Aryan race. What begins as simple self-protection escalates to uneasy acceptance and eventual collusion. Tightly woven into the fabric of the novel are disturbing questions of First Amendment rights, both for the public in general and within a school setting. Where does one person's or group's rights end and another's begin? The characterization of Laurel is noteworthy as well. In spite of Laurel's obvious love for Dan, Ruby refuses to allow her to be the typical teenage girl, manipulated because she believes her love will change him. Rather, realizing that Dan is dangerous, Laurel won't have anything more to do with him. Many young women may feel that Laurel is cold, but she has made the difficult decision to protect herself as well as those around her who deserve her love more than he does. A complex novel, one that is hardly "skin deep"! Frances Bradburn