Why is IT a 'Bestseller'? - A Cynical Perspective (A Child Called 'It' - Dave Pelzer)

Member Name: happybunny75

Product:	A Child Called 'It' - Dave Pelzer
Date:	01/08/01 (2507 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Engrossing, Eye opening

Disadvantages: The Marketing Machine, Doesn't tell the whole story

Is A Child Called ‘It’ an autobiography or an autobiographical novel that was hijacked by clever marketing?

I am going to have a real problem writing this opinion and I know it will take a while, because I don’t want to offend anyone. So how could I possibly offend you?

Like many, I read A Child Called ‘It’ because of the positive feedback that read on this site and recommendations from friends. Most have commented on what a fantastic book it is; how tragic Dave Pelzer’s childhood was and how he’s overcome so much to become a world-renowned writer. Unfortunately, if this weren’t a true story A Child Called ‘It’ would have been buried in bookshops’ graveyards on the bargain shelves or would never have been published at all. Sad, but true.

I would just like to say at this stage that this is not a critique of the content of Dave Pelzer’s story; the book is biographical and a situation which is sadly repeated too many times in our world. Neither can history be rewritten nor could Pelzer write anything other than a brutally honest account of what he endured: If you’re going to tell the truth, you tell the whole truth and don’t dress it up as anything else.

For those who haven’t read A Child Called ‘It’, Pelzer presents the reader with a blow-by-blow account (and believe me, it is) of the physical, and mental abuse that he suffered at the hands of his mother. His father abused him in a different way: he let the violence continue in his presence. Even neighbours, teachers and the authorities didn’t help until 8 more years of Pelzer’s tortured life had past. And they say ignorance is bliss.

In the Author’s Notes, Pelzer reminds the reader that “This book…depicts language that was developed from a child’s viewpoint. The tone and vocabulary reflect the age and wisdom of the child at that particul
ar time”. Ok, that’s fine. I’ve read books before, some autobiographical, where that form of narrative is the only form that should be taken: The world from a child’s eyes. However, after I had finished the first two chapters, I knew that this method wasn’t going to work on me. There were two problems. Firstly, I have read Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt and secondly, the language Pelzer uses does not seem typical of a 12 year olds’ perspective.

‘Explain yourself, you harsh heartless cow!’

I will be the first to say that the childhood’s of Frank McCourt and Dave Pelzer bears no resemblance to one another. McCourt’s childhood was, in a nutshell, one of poverty (the abuse you could argue was down to his drunken father who drank all the money). There is no comparison. However, both are autobiographical and tell the story from the standpoint of their younger selves. McCourt, I believe was able to do this in a way that really was childlike, without being gushy.

There are a couple of examples I found in Pelzer’s account, purely by just stopping at random pages. “I stood in a daze as mother badgered me relentlessly” and “sick, perverted pleasure”. To me, these are not the words of a 12-year-old, but the words of ‘a man called Dave’. I couldn’t see the child in this book, as I believe it was intended. I saw that everything would be all right in the end, because the older Pelzer, and not the younger, was narrating. There were of course times, when I, like many others, were drawn into the hell-on-earth world of the young Pelzer, through the violence which he endured and the occasional reference to the mind of a child. For instance his fear of going to jail. Dave is convinced he is in the wrong, therefore he sees his policeman ‘hero’ as being his condemner.

But what of the other people in his story? I was left feeling
as if there were certain things that needed to be added, in order to understand aspects of Dave’s story. I felt that I needed explanations of why his mother changed from being Ma Walton to The Bitch, and what happened to his brothers on the day that Dave was taken away from the horrific situation. Maybe I’m jumping ahead of myself, and I will find answers to my confusion in one of the sequels. I do realise this was Dave’s story and not intended as an explanation of the ‘whys’, but as a reader who likes to be analytically challenged I had difficulties accepting just the violence.

Unfortunately, I believe that A Child Called ‘It’ is a catalogue of the different types of torture that Dave endured which left me embarrassed because I was reading it. Embarrassed because I consider reading a book as entertainment. Although I was being informed of a true story, I was also entertained.

What is the entertainment value of this book, and why has it been rated so highly?

For those of you who couldn’t put this book down, you were entertained. For those of you who paused for thought in between the harrowing recollections, or would think about Dave’s story when not reading it, you were engrossed in his story and disturbed by its reality. For those of you who didn’t read beyond the first three chapters, you do not have a disposition for gore.

We are all, on the whole, intrigued by horror, crime and other disturbing events/incidents. We read about true-life crimes and watch films that contain violence. I am no psychologist, but I would imagine that most reading A Child Called ‘It’ would have obtained some entertainment value and enjoyment from reading this book. And it is rated so highly because of our sympathy towards Dave and the guilt of both knowing that most of us had never experienced what he had, and that we enjoyed reading what he had gone through.

I noticed o
n the front cover of my paperback copy, the words “The Number One Bestseller”. To me ‘Bestseller’ strikes up visions of Jackie Collins and Danielle Steel. It reeks of commercialism, and lets face it the marketing of this book has exceeded the expectations of bad taste. Here we have the first of a trilogy of books, which contain 150 pages of Dave’s childhood story, and a chapter from each of its sequels. Is that a good marketing ploy? Why could it not have been one book? Well done to the publishers for that one.

And at the end of this cynical opinion I want to say that I will be reading the next part of Dave Pelzer’s trilogy. I want to read about the aftermath of his tragedy and how he became the author of his memoirs after having such a damaging start to his life…maybe my cynicism will become less after that.

But the question I’m still left with is, should this have been published as Dave’s story? No doubt, this will create a somewhat heated debate, but we all deal with reading this kind of hard-hitting truth differently, and I hope that Dave’s story has been read and heeded by the people who should read it

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