The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, reprint ed.
by Chris Fuhrman
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University of Georgia Press: September 2001 (original edition 1994). Trade paperback: 200 pages. ISBN-10: 0-82032-338-1 Suggested retail price: $15.95 (US) Tags: 1970s; Catholic church; first love; Georgia; incest; made into movie; Mainstream; private schools; Savannah; underage drinking Tactical strength: [7/10] |
Against my better judgment, I watched the movie adaptation of The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys before I read the book. The movie takes the action in the book and shows how the main character Francis converts the events in his life into a comic book. The film presents these scenes in fully-realized animated segments. At the time, I wondered if the book interleaved the text of the story line with chapters of a graphic novel, but the comic book drawings don't do much in the book but provide a motivation for the boy's main prank.
Francis, Tim, Rusty, Wade, and Joey all attend eighth grade at the private Catholic junior high school associated with the Blessed Hart Catholic Church. The boys all collaborated on a blasphemous comic book entitled Sodom vs. Gomorrah '74, which prominently featured the nuns and priests of the school engaged in various carnal endeavors. A classroom rival, Donny, steals the comic book and turns it in to Father Kavanagh, who threatens the boys with suspension if they get into any further trouble for the rest of the school year.
The threat doesn't deter Tim from developing a new plan: to steal a cougar from a local protective habitat and release it in the school. Tim wants an investigation big enough to keep the school closed through the end of the school year. Francis convinces the group that they only need to release the cougar from the pen and then leave cougar poop and threatening letters in the school, reasoning that the resulting search for the missing cougar will keep the school closed since they will have to search the entire building for the animal.
Interspersed with the boys' plans to release the cougar, Fuhrman tells about Francis developing his first relationship with seventh-grader Margie. Francis doesn't have the courage to contact Margie himself, so Tim writes a note with Francis's name. The note works and Francis and Margie becomes a couple. Fuhrman does an excellent job at recalling the emotional states and physical feelings of first love. He also uses the racial tensions of the 1970s to good effect to show that racial politics affected even eight graders' relationships with their schoolmates.
Interestingly, the film adaptation skips over some of the major issues, amplifies really minor issues into major ones. The movie ignores the fact that Francis has a hernia and cannot engage in heavy physical activities. It also ignores the beatings Francis receives regularly from his father. The film amplifies one nun's limp into a completely prosthetic leg. The film then tones down a scene in the book where Tim comes across a dog with mange, which he kills with a machete. Tim does cry over the dog, but in the film the dog dies from a hit-and-run accident. In the film, the boys use block and tackle to steal the statue of the patron saint of the school. This never happens in the book at all.
Although the movie takes the book as a rough outline, the book provides an altogether different experience. The greatest similarity occurs in the relationship between Francis and Margie, but we have a much deeper understanding of Tim's character and his relationship with Francis. After all, at thirteen, boys have much stronger relationships with other boys, even when they start to "go steady" with girls. The book also uses the setting to greater effect, such as using race relations to explain a huge fight involving most of the school boys.
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The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys directed by Peter Care
