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Shadow Boxing
by Sherie Posesorski
Regina: Coteau Books,
2009, ISBN 978-1-55050-406-4, 262 pp., $12.95 paper. (Teen Fiction)
Shadow Boxing by Toronto-based author Sherie Posesorski is a novel intended for older teens. The main character is Alice Levitt, a sixteen-year-old living in Toronto in 2004, whose mother has recently died after months of illness. Alice doesn't get along with her father, an ambitious lawyer who buries himself in his work when he's not busy with his latest girlfriend (a practice he carried on even while his wife was ill.) He is determined to leave the past behind and move on, but Alice is not ready to do so. When her father tries to throw out her mother's clothing and knick-knack collections, Alice hides these in her room, determined to keep them as mementoes of her mother.Alice is fighting depression as well as her father, and when the battles with either become too intense, she resorts to self-mutilation, which she hides with long-sleeved clothing. Although she promises her best friend and cousin, Chloe, to stop the practice, she isn't always successful--even when the cuts become infected and she needs medical attention.
Her father has made her appointments with psychiatrists and grief counsellors but they invariably end with Alice more distressed than ever. Her father then threatens to send her either to a girls' boarding school or, as Alice calls it, "the nuthouse." He wants to sell the house and move into a condo, but Alice can't face the thought. Hoping to save money, and in order to keep herself so occupied that she can't think about her mother and her own situation, Alice works during the summer holidays at two jobs.
Chloe, Alice's main support, has her own problems, at school and home. Her mother lives on alimony and spends much of her time at beauty parlours, shopping or with her latest live-in boyfriend. Chloe is so eager for attention and love that she allows her own so-called boyfriend to use her sexually whenever he is so inclined--a practice that Alice tries to make her stop. When Chloe develops an interest in art, and Alice learns to control her cutting tendencies, things begin to look up--for a while.
The book's Toronto setting is woven into the story, as Alice visits or mentions such locations as Casa Loma and Harbourfront. The title comes from a type of art that intrigues Alice, and is made by the eccentric artist with whom Chloe works as a make-up project. The shadow boxes are like miniature dollhouses filled with mementoes, with the front open to expose the interior.
Shadow Boxing is the winner of a Moonbeam Children's Award. The Coteau website lists it for ages 13+, but I would recommend it for older teens. It's an edgy, angst-filled story, with the girls' problems almost overwhelming. The author also works in considerable information about self-mutilation, fertility clinics, teenage pregnancy and open adoption procedures. (One thing I found rather unrealistic was the ease with which a sixteen-year-old managed to get a job at a fertility clinic.) By the end, however, things are more optimistic as the girls work to overcome their difficulties.
Donna Gamache is the author of Spruce Woods Adventure (Compascore Manitoba) as well as many short stories for both children and adults.
Buy this book at McNally-Robinson Booksellers.