美国国家公共电台 NPR In A New Novel, The 'Lost Prayers' Of A Gay Teen Bullied To Death

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Social media platforms can connect people across the globe - and terrorize people next door. Ricky Graves is a young man just coming to terms with his sexual orientation¹ in a small New Hampshire town. He's tormented² by a jerk named Wesley - until Ricky kills him and then himself. The news media descend³. And after they've gone on to the next sad crime, Ricky's pregnant sister, Alyssa, returns to the town she fled so both she and her shattered mother can try to get hold of the terrible event that's taken two lives and maybe understand the son and brother that they've loved.

"The Lost Prayers of Ricky Graves" is an Amazon Best Book of the Month for December and a novel partly told by emails and chatroom dialogues. It's James Han Mattson's first novel. He's a graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, now teaches writing at the George Washington University.

Thanks so much for being with us in the studio.

JAMES HAN MATTSON: Thank you so much for having me.

SIMON: There's a real-life event that set this in your mind - isn't there?

MATTSON: There is. The event that spurred this book is the Tyler Clementi suicide. Tyler Clementi was a Rutgers University student who jumped off the George Washington Bridge in 2010. He did that in part because his roommate at the time livestreamed him being intimate with another man. And his roommate also invited a whole bunch of people to just watch and gawk at this spectacle. And I remember reading that and just being completely repulsed⁴ by it and having that kind of visceral reaction to it. And when I have a reaction like that, I know I have to write about it.

SIMON: Tell me about Jeremy, an accountant in San Francisco, a very compelling character. He's not the accountant in Ricky's life, though. This is a man he meets in a Man-Date chatroom.

MATTSON: Well, Jeremy is somewhat like me in that he was raised in North Dakota and he fled to, you know, a city to kind of, like, live his life openly.

SIMON: You were raised in North Dakota and at some point understood you were gay?

MATTSON: Yeah, I was raised in North Dakota. And I understood, you know, early on that I was different - probably not till later that I was gay. And yeah, I left.

SIMON: And you reconstructed a lot of this - reconstruct - you don't reconstruct. You write a lot of this dialogue in the Man-Date chatroom. There are some people listening that will wonder, how can a teenager in a small town in New Hampshire and a grown man in San Francisco really get to know each other over the Internet?

MATTSON: That's a good question. I've actually developed relationships online that have been, you know, as important - if not more important sometimes - than my relationships in person. So I don't think it's impossible. I think it's just a different medium. I do think in times of catastrophe⁵, especially like what's portrayed⁶ in the book, that that in-person connection is so much more important than the online connection. And unfortunately, in the book, you know, Jeremy isn't there for him during those catastrophic times.

SIMON: You - I have seen some interviews. You've sometimes been critical of Dan Savage⁷'s video and campaign It Gets Better...

MATTSON: Yeah.

SIMON: ...That tells young people who are gay and being bullied⁸ or demeaned, don't worry. It gets better. What are your reservations?

MATTSON: I don't know if it's fully⁹ empathetic to the teenage experience. I think if you're actually a teenager going through bullying¹⁰ and you're hearing this adult person telling you to kind of just wait, it gets better - first of all, I'm thinking you're an adult. You're an old person. And so like, I've automatically separated you into this other completely different world that I never think I'm going to populate. And then I also think that if you're being a bullied teenager, one of the worst things to say is just wait because every single day is so difficult and so torturous¹¹. And in the book, Jeremy kind of tells Ricky that he should wait. And Ricky just can't. Ricky needs to - I mean, he only has a few months left of school. But every day is very torturous for him, so he can't wait.

SIMON: You're a gifted writer. How would you - so is Dan Savage for that matter - how would you adjust that campaign?

MATTSON: I've thought about this a lot. And I think one of the things is adults really have to realize that when you're an adolescent, the most influential¹² group is your peers. I think in adolescence¹³, there's balkanization whereas like you have in-groups and out-groups. And so in order for the bullying to curb¹⁴, there needs to be some overlap¹⁵. The in-group needs to kind of infiltrate¹⁶ the out-group in a very helpful manner. OK? And that's where adults can come in, realizing who's the in-group and who's the out-group and just making sure that they are interacting in a very positive manner over a period of time. And I think if we start with that foundation, we could see some results.

SIMON: James Han Mattson - his first novel "The Lost Prayers of Ricky Graves."

Thanks so much for being with us.

MATTSON: Thank you so much for having me.

1 orientation   

n.方向，目标；熟悉，适应，情况介绍

参考例句：

• Children need some orientation when they go to school.小孩子上学时需要适应。
• The traveller found his orientation with the aid of a good map.旅行者借助一幅好地图得知自己的方向。

2 tormented   

饱受折磨的

参考例句：

• The knowledge of his guilt tormented him. 知道了自己的罪责使他非常痛苦。
• He had lain awake all night, tormented by jealousy. 他彻夜未眠，深受嫉妒的折磨。

3 descend   

vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降

参考例句：

• I hope the grace of God would descend on me.我期望上帝的恩惠。
• We're not going to descend to such methods.我们不会沦落到使用这种手段。

4 repulsed   

v.击退( repulse的过去式和过去分词 )；驳斥；拒绝

参考例句：

• I was repulsed by the horrible smell. 这种可怕的气味让我恶心。
• At the first brush,the enemy was repulsed. 敌人在第一次交火时就被击退了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 catastrophe   

n.大灾难，大祸

参考例句：

• I owe it to you that I survived the catastrophe.亏得你我才大难不死。
• This is a catastrophe beyond human control.这是一场人类无法控制的灾难。

6 portrayed   

v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画

参考例句：

• Throughout the trial, he portrayed himself as the victim. 在审讯过程中，他始终把自己说成是受害者。
• The author portrayed his father as a vicious drunkard. 作者把他父亲描绘成一个可恶的酒鬼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

7 savage   

adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人

参考例句：

• The poor man received a savage beating from the thugs.那可怜的人遭到暴徒的痛打。
• He has a savage temper.他脾气粗暴。

8 bullied   

adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• My son is being bullied at school. 我儿子在学校里受欺负。
• The boy bullied the small girl into giving him all her money. 那男孩威逼那个小女孩把所有的钱都给他。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

10 bullying   

v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈

参考例句：

• Many cases of bullying go unreported . 很多恐吓案件都没有人告发。
• All cases of bullying will be severely dealt with. 所有以大欺小的情况都将受到严肃处理。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 torturous   

adj. 痛苦的

参考例句：

• His breathing was torturous.他的呼吸充满痛苦。
• This is a torturous agonizing way to kill someone.这是一种让人受尽折磨、痛苦难忍的杀人方法。

12 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。

13 adolescence   

n.青春期，青少年

参考例句：

• Adolescence is the process of going from childhood to maturity.青春期是从少年到成年的过渡期。
• The film is about the trials and tribulations of adolescence.这部电影讲述了青春期的麻烦和苦恼。

14 curb   

n.场外证券市场，场外交易；vt.制止，抑制

参考例句：

• I could not curb my anger.我按捺不住我的愤怒。
• You must curb your daughter when you are in church.你在教堂时必须管住你的女儿。

15 overlap   

v.重叠，与…交叠；n.重叠

参考例句：

• The overlap between the jacket and the trousers is not good.夹克和裤子重叠的部分不好看。
• Tiles overlap each other.屋瓦相互叠盖。

16 infiltrate   

vt./vi.渗入，透过；浸润

参考例句：

• The teacher tried to infiltrate her ideas into the children's minds.老师设法把她的思想渗透到孩子们的心中。
• It can infiltrate as much as 100 kilometers into enemy territory at night.可以在夜间深入敌领土100千米。