Gather is the story of a boy and his dog. The young adult novel was a National Book Award finalist, and I would go so far as to say that it deserved the nomination. The writing, especially in the way it captures the voice and character and living situation of an impoverished young man from rural Vermont, is incisive and insightful. Nevertheless, I would also say that I cannot recommend this book to young people, and that it coarsens and distracts the reader particularly with its language, the very thing that also makes it a strong and stirring portrait of a boy struggling to overcome the issues that threaten to destroy him.

First, a short summary of the plot. Ian lives with his mother in a falling-apart house on a few acres of land that are all that are left of the many acres that his father’s family once owned. Ian’s father has deserted him and his mother, and Ian’s mother is unemployed and emotionally fragile. The two of them have no money and very little prospect of gaining any financial stability. They are poor, and they are hungry, and the last thing they need is the huge stray dog that has shown up on their property, also hungry. For Ian, school is a distraction and a waste of time. What he needs is a job and a way to take care of himself, his mother, and his new dog. When finally things become so desperate that Ian must run away and try to fend for himself in the wild, will the community gather to help him, or are he and the dog he named Gather truly isolated and alone?

So Ian is a boy who is rough, not just around the edges, in a rough space, with no time for the niceties of polite society. It makes sense that his language would reflect that, and it does. Ian narrates his own story in this novel, and he uses profane language frequently and explosively. The f-word that seems to be the expletive of choice these days among some groups of young people is, thankfully, not what Ian chooses to use. But the g-d’s and other words are sprinkled liberally throughout the book. On the final pages of the book, Ian even defends his frequent use of swear words. He says, “You want my voice, but you want my voice to be out there using somebody else’s rules, somebody else’s voice. Otherwise they ignore me. Isn’t that what you call censorship or oppression or whatever? Don’t you see how screwed up that is?”

Well, no, Ian (Mr. Cadow), it’s not censorship or oppression; it’s communication. If there is a way to write an authentic novel without all the profanity, then you will be able to communicate with people who otherwise won’t listen to you or perhaps won’t even think you worth listening to because of your ignorant language. I get why Ian (Mr. Cadow) uses all of the swear words, but it is distracting. And that’s too bad because Ian is worth listening to. As a character, he has some thoughtful things to say about education and the kind of education we give our children in the public schools. About drug addiction and the nuances that attend that condition. About nature and the land and our connection or lack of connection to it.

I would love to hand this book to older students, maybe sixteen and up, without the the swearing, (and to be honest, without the seemingly obligatory nod to LGBTQ+ propaganda in the last part of the novel), and to have them read it and discuss Ian and his predicament and his attitudes toward society and school and home and conservative values and other things. But I can’t, and that’s too bad.