People Kill People

People Kill People

"While the outcome of stricter gun control continues to be
debated, I felt it was important to try and understand why someone
might be compelled to pull the trigger. This is what authors do: we
ask why. Why are people prone to violence? Why do people seek
revenge?Why do people hate or fear or despair?Why do people kill
people? If we can understand the whys, perhaps we can begin to solve
the problem."
One of the total delights of my just past March break was
finding a new book by Ellen Hopkins, my all time favorite YA author.
I discovered her Perfect back in 2015 (faked sick so I could stay in
bed and read the whole thing) and was elated to locate her previous
work. Many of her books are in poetry, sometimes with a separate form
for each of a bunch of narrators. But there is nothing artsy or
artificial about her content. It is raw, intense, real, and
gripping. Hopkins deals with issues like drug addiction and teen
prostitution--the stuff most of us who are parents hope our kids steer
clear of but few are willing to come out and discuss.
People Kill People focuses on gun violence from a unique angle.
It is told in second person because you, the reader, are invited to
"slip into the skin" of six different protagonists, each of whom is
fragile, stressed, potentially capable of pulling the trigger under
the right circumstances. You get to walk in the shoes of:
*Rand, a 19-year-old, supporting his wife and son and, although loving
them, missing his more carefree days. He wants to become a cop partly
because he has a score to settle;
*Silas, a white nationalist teen whose father is cohabiting with a
Hispanic woman and whose mother is about to marry a Jew. He's still
obsessed with an ex girlfriend who wants nothing more to do with him;
*Daniel, the out of wedlock child of a well off white father and an
undocumented mother. Since his mom was deported and his dad died he's
been struggling to survive on the streets;
*Noelle, a former successful student who incurred grand mal epilepsy
in a car accident caused by her best friend's father, the driver,
being shot. There are days when she doubts that her own life is worth
living;
*Cami, Reed's wife, who is finding full time housewifery boring and
lonely. She's making money on the side in a way that could get her in
trouble with the law;
and *Ashlyn who saw her violently abusive father kill her mother and
now lives with an indifferent aunt and uncle. She finds the feeling
of belonging she craves in the white nationalist movement.
All these characters are united through ties of family, school,
marriage, work, love...anything but love. Before you turn the final
page one will have pulled the trigger and one will have fallen, never
to get up.
People Kill People is both an impossible to put down cliffhanger
of a novel and a potential impetus toward a topic in need of much
discussion. I highly recommend it as well as all of Hopkins' other
books.
On a personal note, Wednesday was Tunnel Of Oppression at UMaine.
Groups were led on a tour of rooms in which scenarios were acted out.
Like one showed the kind of harassments and other cruelties LGBTQ
people might have to go through in a day. For the second year I was
in the mental health room. Eleven times during the day I played the
part of a severely depressed student with a clueless roommate. It was
an amazing experience. I was participating in something meaningful
with potential to touch people's hearts and minds. (But I have to
admit I really love acting. And all the compliments I got later did
make me happy).
A great big shout out goes out to all who were involved in the fine
production, especially Ben who was in charge.
Next year I'll get to not only act, but script write.
jules hathaway



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