It's hot in Citrus County, Florida. The weather feels hot, the tempers run hot, but in Citrus County, everything is what it isn't. The people of John Brandon's second book are cold. The cool teacher in school wants to murder the schoolmarm in the next room. Children grow up to soon, whether they are loved or neglected. Wigfield is memorable because it couldn't be real; Citrus County is unforgettable because it feels too real. Citrus County is set for wide release in July, but Amazon started selling it June 28, 2010.
Mr. Hibma, the Unorthodox Teacher of Citrus County
The intriguing Mr. Hibma is always held at a distance from readers in Citrus County. He is the sort of character that isn't especially loving, but readers bond with him anyway. He inherits money and regrets squandering it, but his squandering wasn't especially vial. He had some indulgences, he traveled, and he entered public service as a teacher.
Mr. Himba is presented as not much of a teacher; he doesn't mind if the students curse or if they even learn facts. but somehow he is exactly what kids who are struggling to adjust to middle school need. He decides to do something about "ugly girls" and tells his new basketball team, "Stop at Macy's and learn a little about make-up." (63)
The result of Mr. Himba's pragmatic realism is that kids respond. Toby, the troubled teenager who faces neglect and other woes, realizes late in the book that, "he'd needed Mr. Hibma's detentions...In detention, he was a kid." (160) It is through Toby that we see Mr. Hibma is not what he appears.
Nothing is What it Appears in Citrus County
One of Brandon's stylistic habits is to redefine his own creations. "Most of the books in the cabinet weren't really books," he writes, and Mrs. Conner, the owner of the books, "had no loyalty, even to her own grudges." (176-177) Mr. Himba is consistently tempted into murder, and spends much of the book wandering between being a murder and a teacher.
Toby's negectful, abusive Uncle Neal finds a book of poetry in the trash and reads it, but it doesn't help him in intellectually or spiritually. Citrus County's other lost teen, Shelby follows Toby and watches him from the shadows, but, "Shelby wasn't a spy; she was a girl in love." (194) Brandon defines characters, and then allows them to wander in and out of those characterizations. The result is a set of Citrus County residents that readers understand but don't know; they are unpredictable, but their choices seem natural.
Citrus County is a literary GPS system on how lost people end up where they are; the books speaks just as clearly as any in-dash navigation system. Readers are watching the neglected Toby get lost, watching indulged Mr. Hibma get found, and watching the lonely Shelby get re-routed. Although it isn't easy to relate to how the characters live, it is easy to relate to how the characters feel. The book's strength lies in the hope that disconnected people can find each other, can grow, and can change what fate seems to have waiting for them.
Publication Information
Citrus Countywas written by John Brandon. It is scheduled to be published by McSweeney's on in July, 2010, but early copies were made available through Amazon on June 28, 2010. The ISBN is 1934781533.
Alex Sharp - Alex Sharp is a teacher who has been keeping Suite101 readers up to date with the latest in audio- and e-book gadgetry since 2008.
