Bisexual Reading List
By William Burleson
Split Screen: Attack of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies/Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies
by Brent
Hartinger
Harper Collins
ISBN: 978-0-0608-2408-2
Hardcover 16.99, 304pp.
Will Min and Leah make it as a couple, even though Leah, the beautiful cheerleader, is in the closet, much to the chagrin of out-and-proud Min? Will Russel stay with Otto, whom he loves but lives a thousand miles away, or will he go back to his first love, Kevin Land, the popular high school jock?
Young adult literature has come a long way, baby.
Author Brent Hartinger has tapped into that change in a big way with a series of books for teens from a GLBT perspective. And he has done it with both warmth and intelligent story-telling.
In 2007, Hartinger’s book Split Screen won a Lambda Literary Award in the Bisexual category. Split Screen is the third book in a series that began with Geography Club (a Lambda Literary Award Finalist in 2003), followed by The Order of the Poison Oak.
Split Screen explores priorities—what it means to be true to oneself and the tradeoffs people make—all built on a foundation of the importance of support from friends. It features a continuing cast of characters focused on three friends from Robert L Goodkind High School: Russel, the protagonist from the Geography Club and quintessential gay teen navigating his sexuality, Min, an outspoken bisexual, and Gunnar, a straight and perhaps somewhat Asperger’s ally.
The book is actually two stories built on the same situation but told in the first person from two different points of view. Split Screen: Bride of the Soul-Sucking Brain Zombies and Split Screen: Attack of the Soul-Sucking Zombies are back to back, with instructions to “flip the book!” Often a device like this can be really annoying; however, it works here because each of the stories stands up quite well on their own.
In Bride we join 16 year old Min lamenting her lack of a partner: “…I would have been ok with either a boyfriend or a girlfriend. I didn’t have either one, however, so I was feeling a little excluded.” This all changes when Min, Russel, and Gunnar spots a flyer, “’Zombies Wanted!’” looking for teen extras for a horror movie. On the set Min meets Leah, a girl from another school. They hit it off. However, there’s a problem: Leah is in the closet, something Min has been very outspoken against in the past.
It is the strength of Min’s character that led to its winning the Bisexual category at the Lambda Awards. She is drawn by Hartinger as an intelligent, complex, and ultimately compelling young woman. The fact that she articulates many of the issues that bisexuals face traveling in the LGBT community didn’t hurt, either.
The other story reunites Russel and Kevin Land, whose relationship was the subject of Geography Club. They meet again on the movie set and Russel has to square his old feelings for Kevin within the reality of his new boyfriend.
As with all good teen lit, Split Screen is much more than either mere fluff or thinly veiled lectures. As with all good continuing series, it stands on its own two feet. And as with all good GLBT literature, it transcends the category offering something for everyone. Simply put, Hartinger’s work is an enjoyable, compelling, and well-told story.
William Burleson is the author of Bi America: Myths, Truths, and Struggles of an Invisible Community from Haworth Press. www.williamburleson.org
An Interview with Brent Hartinger, Author of Split Screen
· How did you come to writing young adult, LGBT-themed, fiction?
It was a complete fluke. I had written a book with a teenage protagonist, and my agent-at-the-time said, “I think I'll try to sell this as YA.” I remember being totally offended, thinking that I was being pigeon-holed, that teen wasn't “real” literature. But then I started reading some teen books, and I realized how good they are—that the average teen book is, [in my opinion], much better than the average “adult” book. Why? Well, since we're supposedly writing for “reluctant” readers, we're strongly encouraged to get to the point, to engage the reader right away, to use economy of language, be plot-driven. Self-indulgence and a meandering or non-existent plot is just far less acceptable in this genre (though not non-existent, alas).
· Is this a growing category? Is there a lot of such reading now joining Little House on the Prairie in school libraries?
Oh, absolutely. Right when I decided to commit myself to teen lit, which was around 1995, that was the start of this absolute explosion in the genre in terms of both quality and quantity. Teen fiction is one of the few genres that is actually pretty healthy these days--that and fantasy.
· You won the Lambda award in the “Bisexual” category because Min, an out bisexual, was such as strong character. What brought you to that choice of making her bi?
She was that way right from the beginning, probably in part because so many of the teen girls I was working with were also bi. I knew there was something going on in society among young people, even back in the 1990s, which most adults were completely unaware of. What's depressing is that here it is over ten years later and bisexuals are still fighting for awareness!
· Have you received much feedback from teen readers, both to this work and the earlier books in the Geography Club series? For that matter, have you received any push-back from people who believe topics like this should be best left in the closet?
Oh, it's overwhelming—just thousands of letters and emails. Very gratifying, and very, very humbling. I write non-gay books too, often with similar sales, but I don't get anywhere near the amount of email from those books. The GBLT teen genre somehow really touches a deep chord in people, adult and teen alike.
As for a push-back, yeah, I've been challenged and banned quite a few times, and
I get the occasional hate email and death threat. It's a little disturbing when
you realize how truly insane some of these anti-gay folks are. I mean, man, do
they have issues! And we have to somehow share a country and a planet with them.
It's sobering.
But the good far, far, far outweighs the bad!
· Split Screen is the third in a series. Will there be a fourth?
Truthfully, that depends on if the Geography Club movie ever gets made,
which, at this moment in time, seems pretty likely. But it's not a small budget
project, so it's been a long process.
For the complete interview, visit www.williamburleson.org