Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
Sent to DS by the author, David R. Yale
by Diane Donovan
Midwest Book Review Bookwatch, Aug. 10, 2022
April 3, 2023
The Real Paul Makinen?
By David R. Yale
A Healthy Relationship Press, LLC
978-0-9791766-0-9, 978-0-9791766-1-6, 978-0-9791766-3-0
www.DavidRYale.Com
The Real Paul Makinen? is a novel not for those seeking quick reads, but is highly recommended for readers not daunted by complex, in-depth probes of emotional relationships, from family and work to potential loved ones.
Set in three parts, it introduces the milieu of Minneapolis in the early 1970s, where the 19-year-old Paul receives his draft notice, refuses to go, and is summarily thrown out of his parents’ house.
It’s not as though he’s leaving a loving but strict home. From the start, his abusive and controlling father Edward has created situations that have continually challenged Paul’s life. His mother joins him in being harsh. And it seems they’d rather have a dead son, like his more dutiful brother, than one who avoids the call to war and duty.
Paul questions his parents’ ultimatum, partially based on his dead brother’s plea to him not to follow in his footsteps should he be called. His protests fall on deaf ears as his parents insist that Paul fulfill their vision of his life and its purposes: “Duty? What does that even mean?” I said.
“To serve your country,” Edward said, banging his fist on my dresser. “No son of mine’s going to wimp out.”
His unforgiving and violent home life seem the least likely roots from which to get a job helping teens, but Paul has evolved beyond his influences in some surprising ways. These paths are probed and depicted during the course of a story that is vividly represented.
David R. Yale introduces many subplots and thought-provoking moments, from the role of a mentor in Paul’s life that helps belay his family’s negative teachings to a girlfriend who holds the potential to become something more than a transient romantic interest.
Yale peppers his story with reflective passages to give readers pause in their food for thought: “Joe, a grown man, a college graduate, had changed all that. It was Joe who started the Teen Council that turned things around here. And me? Still a teenager, homeless, with a draft notice in my pocket, who still had no idea what he was doing. Everyone knew I was a fraud. I was not the real Paul Mäkinen, even if I was on the Teen Council for a year.”
While an identity crisis lies at the heart of this story, also intrinsic to its success and unique approach is a growth process whereby the simultaneously savvy and life-ignorant Paul receives lessons not just on how community works, but his own possible places in it.
Paul’s growing awareness of the world works on broader terms than just his own psyche and life. That’s one of the strengths of The Real Paul Makinen? as it grows to embrace issues of climate change, business savvy, and evolving friendships: “Harry pointed up. ‘Looks like the wind is finally blowing that red murk away.’
‘Can you imagine, we breathe that stuff in!’ I said. ‘Probably worse than smoking, huh?’”
The dialogue and local lingo is also a strong key to the story’s developments, juxtaposing action with a personal dramatic inspection that brings not just the first-person Paul but all the characters around him to life.
Part of the reason why this story is so lengthy is that Yale also takes the time to capture the moments of life experience which are steeped in taste, smell, and new experiences: “I took a bite of sandwich. I loved the feeling of salty caviar globules bursting when I chewed them, the contrast between oily caviar and moist, crispy green pepper. As Rennie ate, she perked up. ‘You want another, Paavali? I’ll make them.’
She came back with ham, cheese, and tomato sandwiches. The salty ham and nutty, sweet Graddöst cheese worked together with the tomato to make a flavor harmony.”
The level of detail may be unexpected in a coming-of-age story, but here’s the thing: The Real Paul Makinen? is not a light examination. It pulls no corners or punches as it gathers a wide range of life perspectives, influences, and logic and emotion that direct the course of Paul’s budding new adult years.
Where other stories might skimp in favor of a quicker plot with easy resolution, The Real Paul Makinen? takes the longer, more detailed path whether it’s describing changing environments, changing hearts and minds, or teens on the cusp of grasping adult decisions and life-changing choices which come with unexpected consequences.
The Teen Council and Paul’s involvement in it is one of the strong threads of a story that shows how different kinds of commitment lead to better lives all around. Its involvement in neighborhood dreams and politics, smear campaigns and union-busting manipulations, and an already-on-edge community that explodes in reaction to its local issues and the overlay of death in Vietnam makes for a powerful, in-depth read.
The Real Paul Makinen? is presented not just in several parts, but many layers. It is not a read for those who expect quick, pat resolutions and the usual coming-of-age growth story, but takes the time to explore the social, political, and psychological complexities buffeting a young man’s life and changing the course of his future and interests.
As Paul also tackles the roots of problems caused by his abusive family roots and his tendency to react to life circumstances from dysfunctional teachings, readers will have plenty of opportunity to consider the lasting impact of family psychology and influence.
All these facets and more create a story that is unusually rooted in a sense of time, place, and community interactions and reactions.
While mature teens would be a fine audience for it, it’s a shame that a prerequisite for The Real Paul Makinen? is an ability to hold a degree of attention and literacy that Twitter generation users might not have.
Ideally, its powerful messages and winding course of growth and confrontation will be assigned as classroom reading for young adults and the subject of book club discussion for adults seeking a far wider-ranging, bigger-picture story of growth than the usual coming-of-age saga.
Its bittersweet depiction of love, loss, growth, and social and political involvement as seen through the eyes of a teen who influences not just his life, but those around him, is an outstanding representation of life that deserves top billing in any collection strong in literary works that move from personal struggle to deeper political and community inspections.
See also:
The Real Paul Makinen? by David R. Yale
From the archives:
The Chris Hedges Report: Splinterlands’ Climate Dystopia, with John Feffer
Journey Through Snow and Dreams, an excerpt from The Crown of Light, by Rivera Sun
Rivera Sun’s The Way Between, by David Swanson
The Phoenix Moment, by Rivera Sun
The Murmuration + The Winds of Change are Blowing! by Rivera Sun
Rivera Sun’s The Dandelion Insurrection reviewed by Guadamour
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