Armed and dangerous
Dazzlingly written and painfully relevant, Jennifer Clement’s brilliant new novel, “Gun Love,” targets American gun culture, focusing on the povertystricken denizens of an insulated Florida trailer park community.
Thoughtful, dreaming, teenage narrator Pearl lives with her adored mother, Margot, in a broken-down car. A once-wealthy empath who can feel people’s hopes and sorrows (“My mother was a cup of sugar. You could borrow her anytime,” Pearl says), Margot works at making their meager life magic, keeping stolen china and silver from her former home twinkling alongside groceries in their trunk. Their only worries are tow trucks, Child Protective Services or someone’s itchy trigger finger. But when Margot falls for Eli, a drifter she somehow can’t read, Pearl finds herself catapulting into a far more dangerous world.
Clement’s dislike for guns is palpable on the page, and she shows how and why poverty is part of the package. Here, guns offer entertainment because what else can you do when you have next to nothing but shoot at river fish? Guns offer power to stop danger; they sweeten romance because they mean you want your loved ones safe. Even the pastor starts up a Guns for God program, supposedly to help people out with a little cash, but with much more nefarious intent.
The exquisite language (a runaway’s hands are full of “church claps”) stops you in your tracks as much as the scenarios: A besotted woman tries to make her trailer look enticing by planting Barbies knee-deep around its perimeter. There’s a “blessing of the hands” at the VA hospital where Margot works, honoring the nurses’ dedication to the broken people they treat.
These transients, damaged veterans and struggling families are all as heartbreaking and resilient as Pearl is, and Clement treats them with grace and compassion. But make no mistake: Because of guns, these people’s lives are tragedies just waiting to happen.
Caroline Leavitt’s latest novel is “Cruel Beautiful World.” Email: books@ sfchronicle.com