‘Colors’
Dramatis personæ:
Neil Darrien (MC)
Brother Gramm (Villain)
Aunt Jenny (Heroine)
Melissa (Love interest)
Zane (Love interest)
Supporting characters
There are no spoilers in my remarks. I’m not going
to synopsize ‘Colors’. Others have already done that on various review sites.
‘Colors’, by
Russell Sanders, is a novel written primarily for young adults. It is written
in the first person, a voice, which, if handled well, lets the author explore
the immediacy of the main character’s actions, his motives and especially, his
emotions. Being a story about a teenage boy those emotions are naturally
kaleidoscopic. The story opens in a church sanctuary. Brother Gramm is ‘slobbering’
over nine-year old Neil Darrien’s naked genitals. All the while Brother Gramm
is telling Neil that he likes it—does he? Neil is ashamed, frightened, angry,
and confused. At nine years of age he’s certainly capable of feeling sexual
pleasure, even if he doesn’t quite understand it entirely. You see what I mean
by kaleidoscopic. In response to this abuse of power and the love of a boy for
his pastor, young Neil concentrates on the refracted light streaming in from
the church’s stained glass windows, anything to distract him, to blot out what
is actually happening; Red Green Yellow Blue Orange Purple, over
and over and over, thus Colors.
As I read the first chapter of ‘Colors’ I sensed where
Russell Sanders was going. I was right.
The complex emotions that swirl around the sex act itself,
described only once in full detail, are not revived in this story through Neil’s
conscious memory but rather through the intangible colors of splintered light. How
does Russell Sanders do it? One word, envoi. Envoi is a device often used in
poetry; think Alfred Noyes, or Dylan Thomas, and especially Edgar Allen Poe. However,
an envoi is not common in prose and yet Sanders uses it, dare I say revels in
it, in ‘Colors’. Red Green Yellow Blue Orange Purple, Sanders
employs no less than seven envois in various combinations in the first chapter
of ‘Colors’. Throughout the story Neil, now eighteen, is haunted by the memory
of his betrayal, made all the more evident through the colors that surround him
in the foyer atrium of his high school, or the sanctuary of a church. For me,
the colors represented the prism of Neil’s heart, its fears, hopes, and dreams,
and yes, denial and desire.
‘Colors’ is a well-crafted story for any young adult,
whether gay or straight, and that is why I recommend it.
