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A review by benvedou
Rolling the R's by R. Zamora Linmark
3.0
You guys think you so hot-shit, but you know what? The ground you standing on is not the freakin’ meltin’ pot but one volcano. And one day, the thing goin’ erupt and you guys goin’ be the first ones for burn.
They like you because you’re a copycat, want to be just like them.
They like you because—give it a few more years—you’ll be just like them.
Rolling the R’s is a short but potent snapshot of queer diaspora teen life in 1970s Hawaii. Does it sound like a lot to cover in 170 pages? It is. Rolling’s characters are lightning bolts. Author, R. Zamora Linmark, can say more about an individual supporting player in a brief vignette than many can say of their protagonist in an entire novel. This is a profound talent.
Sexual and gender identities, abuse, addictions, sex work, and systemic racism are all brought to stage through our characters’ eyes. We begin to see how the structures they exist in begin to inform their choices and their acts. In equal measure, we see how abuse and neglect drives one to risky sexual encounters, and how popular culture/disco music offers a blessed reprieve. In order to rightfully and respectfully understand characters, we must see the breadth of what they experience. Linmark scratches the surface of what might have been, here. There is an opus hidden in these pages that I want to hear, but this was not the path Linmark chose for his work. I continue to feel like the scope of this project is not captured with its brief length. Not by a long shot. I now have to grapple with this.
The sometimes-prose, sometimes-vernacular, sometimes-poetry, sometimes-first person, sometimes-epistolary nature of the novel works for it and against it. This is an interesting, nebulous read and I feel I can’t say much more.
They like you because you’re a copycat, want to be just like them.
They like you because—give it a few more years—you’ll be just like them.
Rolling the R’s is a short but potent snapshot of queer diaspora teen life in 1970s Hawaii. Does it sound like a lot to cover in 170 pages? It is. Rolling’s characters are lightning bolts. Author, R. Zamora Linmark, can say more about an individual supporting player in a brief vignette than many can say of their protagonist in an entire novel. This is a profound talent.
Sexual and gender identities, abuse, addictions, sex work, and systemic racism are all brought to stage through our characters’ eyes. We begin to see how the structures they exist in begin to inform their choices and their acts. In equal measure, we see how abuse and neglect drives one to risky sexual encounters, and how popular culture/disco music offers a blessed reprieve. In order to rightfully and respectfully understand characters, we must see the breadth of what they experience. Linmark scratches the surface of what might have been, here. There is an opus hidden in these pages that I want to hear, but this was not the path Linmark chose for his work. I continue to feel like the scope of this project is not captured with its brief length. Not by a long shot. I now have to grapple with this.
The sometimes-prose, sometimes-vernacular, sometimes-poetry, sometimes-first person, sometimes-epistolary nature of the novel works for it and against it. This is an interesting, nebulous read and I feel I can’t say much more.