Night Fisher: Painfully Accurate

“Night Fisher” was not what I expected. The title made me assume it was going to be about animals and living in the woods. Instead, it turned out to be a quiet, meditative, painfully accurate depiction of the ups and downs of senior year in high school. Even for those of us who never dabbled with hard drugs, or lived in Hawaii, or went to a private school, the story just rings true, in a million little ways. R. Kikuo Johnson has an exceptional ear for the pacing and rhythm of conversation, and a memory for all the ways, tiny or gargantuan, that one can be made or unmade during the high school years.

The book’s protagonist, Loren, might be classified as a geek, but, as is true of real life, the situation is much more complicated than that. His on-and-off best friend, Shane, might be classified as a “bad kid,” but he too has way more layers than that. They are both aware of the stereotypes they embody, and the ways in which they don’t embody them. “Night Fisher” repeatedly reminds us that none of us were any one thing in high school—and sometimes, at the drop of a dime, for the silliest reason, somebody could switch tracks completely.

One of the characters who interested me most, however, was not a high schooler, but Loren’s dad. We learn bits and pieces of Loren’s dad’s story from what Loren tells us about him: that he moved to Hawaii and bought his dream house, only to find himself engulfed by an unstoppable yard, where the grass grows as fast as he mows it. That he’s sent Loren to an expensive private school because he wants to provide a good future for him. Loren’s dad is likeable because he is real: he has good intentions, but doesn’t always understand or remember what it’s like to be Loren’s age.

His mixture of love, good intentions, and misunderstanding are all felt intensely in the scene when he confronts Loren, after the teenager is caught by the cops, with drugs. Breaking down a two-page spread (120-121) panel-by-panel, it flows like this:

ONE:
Dad: . . .
TWO:
Dad: So this was FUN for you? Running around with that thirty year old deadbeat?
THREE:
(Close-up of the poster in the dentist office of five smiling, attractive young people.)
FOUR:
(Zoom out so we can see the words “Whiter Teeth!” above the poster, and Loren lying in the chair in front of it.)
Loren: No.
FIVE:
(VERY dark panel. Loren in the dentist chair, and Loren’s dad in his regular chair are just silhouettes. All we see are the slats in the Venetian blinds.)
SIX:
Dad: You’re gonna have to work a little harder to help me understand this, Loren.
SEVEN:
Close on Loren as he turns his face away from his dad, to us.

ONE:
Loren: Winthrope gets old…I mean, the kids there are pretty fake.
TWO:
Dad: You know all that gangster crap on your CD’s is fake, right?
Loren: I don’t listen to that stuff, Dad.
THREE:
(Dark shot again. Dad standing, peaking out the Venetian blinds.
FOUR:
(We are outside the blinds, looking at the Dad’s face peaking out.)
Dad: So Winthrope’s been a waste.
Loren: No. It’s a good school.
FIVE:
(Profile view of Dad at blinds.)
Dad: You’ve got friends there, right?
Loren: Yeah.
SIX:
Dad: The sun’s up. My first appointment’s in two hours. I won’t be ready if I drive you home first.
Loren: I’ll walk.

This parental reaction, a mix of silence and outburst, felt far more accurate than many teen stories, in which a parent flies into a screaming rage, or weeps with disappointment. Loren’s Dad seems to feel more a combination of the two, plus a large dose of plain confusion. He seems to be wondering simply: “Why would you do this? What did I do wrong that made you turn out this way? I was trying so hard to be a good parent.” The way that “Night Fisher” manages to articulate such intensity of feeling and longing, without too many words, and never a sense of heavy-handedness, is really remarkable. The style (which reminds me of Jessica Abel) is in many ways realistic, but still with the presence of a human hand (there are no ruler-straight lines). The heavy use of black, especially in the nighttime scenes when Loren is riding around with Shane and his friends, is sometimes quite ominous. These aspects and more all contribute to the book’s capturing of that uneasy, unsure feeling of being about to leave the comfort and familiarity of high school, but being just as uneasy about the idea of getting stuck in that place. For a book drawn in high contrast black-and-white, “Night Fisher” is all about shades of gray.