The Express, UK
August 11, 2006 Friday
U.K. 1st Edition

Inexcusable absence of likeability;
Weekend BOOKS

PETER BURTON

INEXCUSABLE By Chris Lynch Bloomsbury, GBP 6.99

WHEN JD Salinger’s The Catcher In The Rye was first published some 55
years ago, it launched on the world a character who was to become a
literary archetype.

Holden Caulfield was one of the earliest fictional characters to
express their teenage angst in a pacy, colloquial first person
narrative. Keir "Killer" Sarafian in Chris Lynch’s Inexcusable is a
direct descendant. However, it needs to be made clear that there is
one major difference between them. Salinger’s hero is an intelligent
and articulate youth; Lynch’s protagonist is none too bright or
articulate.

If the latter had at least some of the attributes of the former,
Inexcusable might be a more compelling book.

Keir’s rambling monologue is essentially a confession in which his
dark secret isn’t exposed until the concluding pages of the novel.
Not that it’s hard to work out what he’s done and even the dimmest of
the teenaged readers at whom the book is aimed will quickly guess
what is coming.

After too many drugs and too much alcohol on the night of his high
school graduation, Keir has raped his date, Gigi Boudakian, who, like
him, is of Armenian extraction.

For most of his confession, Keir meanders on about his life with his
alcoholic father and his own responses to the repercussions to the
football incident which has earned him his macho nickname.

Perhaps understandably, Keir doesn’t have a lot to say about the rape
that isn’t simple self-justification. What the reader has to decide
is just what has happened between Keir and Gigi and to come to their
own conclusions about Keir’s guilt – or otherwise.

After all, did Gigi lead him on?

Unfortunately, Lynch has rather thrown his novel by building it
around a character who is one-dimensional and rather unlikeable.
Thus, however much Keir rehearses the events that have led up to his
dilemma – awaiting retribution from Gigi’s father and her long-term
boyfriend – it is almost impossible to sympathise and wish him
anything but ill.

Inexcusable is a flat book which serves to remind British readers
that American culture is utterly alien. Here’s an important theme
that’s almost entirely wasted.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress