COLORS by Russell Sanders

‘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.