WHALE of a story

Six years after the release of his seventh novel, "Ironman," award- winning author and Spokane family therapist Chris Crutcher has returned -- with a passion. Its name is "Whale Talk."

First presented to his publisher as a riveting glimpse into the life and mind of a fictional school shooter (inspired by Moses Lake gunman Barry Loukaitis), Crutcher scrapped the original manuscript two weeks after submission.

"I walked into a hotel room in Dallas, ready to make a presentation to the Texas Library Association, turned on my television set while unpacking my clothes and saw students from Columbine High School rushing from the building, hands on their heads," he says.

Crutcher was soon on the phone to editor Susan Hirschman, who was waiting for his call. "Is my manuscript on your desk?" he asked. "Is your garbage can beside your desk? Do it!"

Three years of work sailed unceremoniously into the editor's "circular file."

"I was not going to be the guy who exploited that tragedy," Crutcher says. "But more to the point, Littleton changed our consciousness about this particular kind of tragedy. The events in my story were reduced to a footnote."

Like a surgeon, Crutcher extracted only the title and key characters from the ill-fated manuscript and started again -- from scratch.

Nine months later, "Whale Talk" rose from the ashes in the image of heroic biracial high school student Tao Jones. Not a trace of the topical, Columbine-like violence or the original plotline remained in the coming-of-age novel set in Spokane.

Born of color to a white but dysfunctional mother (" ... she'd had a one-night stand with my sperm donor to get even for a good thumping," Crutcher writes), T.J. was almost immediately given up for adoption.

Lovingly raised, "the rainbow-coalition kid of two white, upwardly mobile ex-children of the '60s," he grew up compassionate, understanding both his good fortune and his anger.

Opposed to the high-pressure tactics of high school coaches, the gifted athlete competes regularly in Hoopfest, but avoids extracurricular sports until his senior year. Asked by his journalism adviser to anchor and recruit a swim team, T.J. uses the opportunity to confront the system and to champion a fascinating collection of unlikely mermen including Chris Coughlin, a developmentally disabled student.

"Both books talk about what it is to be on the outside," Crutcher says of "Whale Talk," original and revised. "They are very different stories, but I think that piece comes through."

According to Internet posts on the Young Adult Library Association's listserv subscription, many experts also approve of the new "Whale Talk."

"I loved the relationship between Chris and T.J.," says literature specialist Teri Lesesne of Sam Houston State University in Texas. "What works best and what I admire most about Crutcher's body of work is the determination of the main character to stick up for the underdog."

"Crutcher really knows the kids he writes about," adds Di Herald of GenreFluent.com. "In `Whale Talk,' he really hits the ways they react to their problems square on the head. I loved the way that the outsiders all came together and were triumphant."

The book "is vintage Crutcher," says San Francisco storyteller Walter Mayes ("Valerie and Walter's Best Books for Children," Avon). "It's full of the things I have come to expect from him - an angry, mouthy protagonist; amazingly vivid characterizations (both positive and negative); a healthy dose of sports; and the healing, redemptive power of self-love."

Not all the comments were positive. "I found it disappointing," wrote Ed Sullivan of the Children's Defense Fund's Langston Hughes Library in Tennessee.

Still, he said, "There are some great moments. The play therapy scene with the young girl and the black dolls is heartbreaking."

If authenticity is the backbone of Crutcher's storytelling brilliance, it can be traced back to a patchwork of personal and professional experiences custom-made for classic "coming of age" literature.

At Eastern Washington University in Cheney, a collegiate Crutcher swam competitively and studied psychology and sociology before going on to get his teaching certificate.

As the director of a "last chance" alternative school in Oakland, Calif., Crutcher spent nearly 10 years working with what he lovingly calls "throwaway kids." He returned to Washington state to become a family therapist and head of the Spokane Child Protection team.

"He's seen it all," says fellow novelist and Crutcher biographer Terry Davis, "and he's not afraid to talk about it. Kids know if they want answers, Crutcher isn't going to tell them lies."

Though that same devotion to truth will be present in his next book, Crutcher admits he may take a subtle turn.

"I've spent a lot of time and energy finding things wrong with high school," he says. "This next book will find some of the good things."

This sidebar appeared with the story:

READING

Chris Crutcher will read from his new book, "Whale Talk" (Greenwillow, 224 pages, $16.95), on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at Auntie's Bookstore, 402 W. Main.

Copyright 2001 Cowles Publishing Company
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