Jeremy Stone by Lesley Choyce (review)

After his grandfather died and his father moved out, Jeremy Stone gave up talking. His mother, struggling with addiction, took him to counselors and spirit guides, who decided he was ready to tackle school again. As the only Mi’kmaq student in his new place, he immediately becomes a target of Thomas, the school’s bully; a girl named Caitlan, who lost her old boyfriend, Jenson, to suicide because he couldn’t stand up to Thomas, steps up to protect Jeremy. Jeremy also has a gift that gives him a measure of strength apart from Caitlan’s support: he can see and talk to the spirits of the dead. At first it’s just Old Man, his grandfather, but soon he is visited by Jenson, and then Jimmy, a friend of his from his childhood on the reserve. They help him see that his task is not vengeance against Thomas but reform through friendship, and that his urgent task is saving Caitlan, who is seriously considering joining Jenson in the afterlife. The unique twist in this Canadian verse novel intriguingly blurs the lines between the imagination, the spirit world, and the here and now, while Choyce’s carefully constructed free-verse poems force a contemplative pace. He relies on space and shape to orchestrate the reading, differentiating speakers through manipulating where the lines begin, and showing Jeremy’s hesitations through staggered margins and breaks in the lines. The high interest comes, then, from a blend of familiar social situations—bullying and self-harm—with an innovative and refreshing remedy—the introduction of possible spirit guides from a real-world religious tradition rather than literary fantasy. Additionally, the poetry allows access for both strong and less adept readers by slowing things down and imposing, at times, an easily solved puzzle. Classrooms and collections looking for sensitively handled First Nations/Native American material will want to consider this. An interview with the author is included.