Review of Only Child by Rhiannon Navin

 

For better or worse, guns are as much a part of American culture as the Fourth of July and apple pie.  The debate over gun regulation is one of the most heated in the history of this country.  One of the unfortunate offspring off American gun culture has been mass school shootings, shattering the innocence of young lives and ripping families apart in the most heartbreaking ways.

Only Child by Rhiannon Navin explores a Sandy Hook-like school shooting and its aftermath from the unique perspective of one of the six year old survivors.  From the opening pages, when Zach Taylor hides in a closet with his teacher and the rest of his first-grade classmates, the author draws us in with his simple yet profoundly insightful perspective on the events taking place.  As the adults around him fall apart, Zach retreats into another closet- in his brother's room, where he processes his emotions through painting and reading a popular children's book series.  The author tells an unfortunately all too familiar tale through the eyes of a sensitive, soulful little boy, who readers quickly realize is wise beyond his young years.   

Originally from Bremen, Germany, Rhiannon Navin came to New York City and pursued a career in advertising.  Now a wife and mom living outside of New York, Only Child is her first novel.

Only Child is an exciting debut from a first-time novelist.  Navin took an extremely difficult topic and handled it with great care and compassion, avoiding the potential landmines of over-emphasis on actual violence or political debates.  Her focus on Zach's family as a microcosm of the community around them, provided an intimate portrait into the lives of victims and survivors of gun violence and the use of a six year old narrator provided a refreshingly beautiful perspective.  There were times when Zach thought and said things that were so profound that it took my breath away.  When Zach's dad explains what the word sympathy means to him, he responds by saying, "I only noticed how Andy acted bad all the time.   That he was being mean to me.  A lot of times I didn't like him because of that, and I didn't try to feel the sympathy with him.  Maybe Andy wouldn't have acted bad a lot of times if he could have noticed that we were feeling the sympathy with him.  I don't know."  Many adults couldn't figure out the things that Zach did, especially the adults in his family.  But what made him so unique, is that the author still managed to remind us that he was actually a child with all the accompanying behaviors, including tantrums, bedwetting, and clinging to a favorite stuffed animal.  Ironically, that is what made Zach's voice so compelling.  While we as adults can't sit down and agree on how to keep first-graders from getting massacred at school, a six-year old figured out how to heal his family, and spread that healing to his community.  If we could all only see the world through the beauty and innocence of a child's eyes.