The Debut: Coert Voorhees
Brian Kenney -- School Library Journal, 6/17/2008 7:10:00 AM
In Voorhees's first novel, The Brothers Torres (Hyperion), 16-year-old Frankie Torres Towers has a lot going on. His older brother has fallen in with the local cholos, maybe endangering his college scholarship. His pursuit of Rebecca Sanchez is finally getting off the ground, but he brings on the wrath of a powerful rich kid, John Dalton, in the process. And it looks like Frankie's parents might be selling their New Mexican restaurant--to the Dalton family! In SLJ's upcoming July issue, Vicki Reuter writes that “Frankie is as memorable a character as Sherman Alexie's Junior Spirit.”
SLJTeen spoke with Voorhees--a former high school teacher--as he finished his second year in the graduate writing program at the University of Houston.
This novel made me incredibly anxious. At points, I had to put it down and take a break. Have you had that reaction from other readers?
Yes, but not in so many words. The book captures a lot of the anxieties one feels when growing up. And for adult readers, it probably brings them back to those times, which for many of us aren't always pleasant memories.
This book is a real boy's book--not that it's just for a male readership--but it really captures a male state of mind. Was that your intent?
Yes, for sure. When I was growing up, I received so much conflicting information about my role in the world as a man. I questioned how to act, and wondered who to emulate. I didn't have an older brother, but I had older friends, and I looked to them to understand who I was suppose to be, and how I was suppose to act. Certainly when you're 16 years old your understanding of these issues is continually changing. And especially in Frankie's world, where there is a physical aspect to manliness--or honor--that complicates things even more.
There's this huge gulf between the internal Frankie and the external. His internal voice is so knowing and droll, you want to applaud when he finally shares it with others.
We know Frankie is perceptive because his interior dialogue is sometimes witty, and he's very specific in the details. At the same time, we see the exterior world he lives in, so we know his perspective isn't always right. In a way, I think of it as two stories, the story he thinks is happening--like with Rebecca, his parents--then the real story, which we can pick up through the objective details.
I don't know the Southwest, and I was pretty fascinated with the strong sense of place in this novel, and the bicultural world you portray. Do you know these communities well?
The final page of New Mexico Magazine is called “One of Our Fifty Is Missing”: it's where people write in about the experiences they have, like being asked for their passport when they travel to other states. There is always this sense of New Mexico as being a foreign place, exotic and different. As someone who grew up there, you don't really see these communities as multicultural--or at least you don't recognize them as such--you just don't know any different. Spanglish is spoken by Latinos and Anglos alike. I wanted Frankie's parents to run a restaurant so readers could get a sense of the food, which is a real source of pride for all New Mexicans.
A real achievement of this novel is that you keep so many balls in the air: coming-of-age, cultural issues, class and economic issues. But these never seem like “problems,” just part of Frankie's world.
From the beginning, it was all about Frankie. The plot changed, but the character never did. The issues all came from the character, and not the other way around. I wrote this book for myself; I didn't know anything about young adult literature. I wasn't writing for an audience, I was writing for a character.
The Brothers Torres was also reviewd by one of our teen reviewers.
“The Debut,” a monthly column, features first-time YA authors.
