HEAVY METAL IS A SIN

Tate’s literary novel looks at a death in a family.

Elena sits at the funeral of her father, George Holden, as her uncle Oscar delivers a eulogy. It’s the first time Elena has ever met her father’s brother. Oscar, a career Army man, appears at the funeral in uniform. Most of what he has to tell about his brother comes from the years before he joined the military. George and Oscar had a tough upbringing in Boggs Tract in Stockton, California; they got their kicks from activities like running barefoot through mud to the Stockton Deepwater Channel. Their family was poor and troubled—their mother had a drinking problem, and their father was largely indifferent to their upbringing. At one point, both parents abandoned the boys, which left George and Oscar under the care of their aunt. The boys decided to strike out on their own, eventually finding work at a factory. It was at this factory where George learned metalwork and Oscar learned how to repair machinery. While Oscar’s stories illuminate some of the life of Elena’s father, they do little to ease her grief. The narrative moves quickly from the brothers’ early years on to the days when those still living must deal with George’s death. The characters have meaningful observations to share about loss: As Elena notices, “As time went on, I learned that grief is very illogical”; Oscar, ever the military man, realizes that “grief doesn’t take orders.” Some aspects of Oscar’s stories are dry, like his assertion that the longer the brothers worked at the factory, “the better they got. Their co-workers were really nice to them, too.” Yet the simple language keeps everything in motion. Via Tate’s effectively sparse prose, by the end of it all, readers will have a clear image of George, his brother, and the weight of grief.

An effective exploration of what it means to lose a loved one.