Review: "Kung Fu High School" by Ryan Gattis

It is quite appropriate that near the tail end of Kung Fu High School,  Ryan Gattis’s blood soaked ode to the horrors of high school  that a group of thespians are rehearsing a scene from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Despite the busted noses, broken ones and torn muscles, this dystopian look at adolescence run amok shares some thematic elements with such a tragedy, from it’s doomed hero, his even ore doomed love affair and all of the characters seemingly unaware of the grim road they have taken and where that leads. I would have thought I had grown out of reading and enjoying books like this that take a matter of fact and overly hip smart look at human depravity, but for some reason (I think this might have to do with my copy being re-released and updated by the author if I were to take a guess), but Gattis, who really impressed me with his last two novel, All Involved and Safe, has a grasp for the consequences of violence. It can be an exclamation point or a tool for shock and awe, but never does he shy away from its results, both physically (all of which in this book is, supposedly, accurate) and the deeper psychological effects it has on its victims and perpetrators. This won’t be a book for everyone and I can easily envision people reading this book and not seeing what I do, and more power to them. But looking past the brutality, as eloquently and symphonic it may be, this was a much deeper story with much bigger themes. After a prologue where Jimmy Chang, teen Kung-Fu master and the arguable hero of this book, puts a group of men in the hospital, his cousin Jen introduces us to Martin Luther King Jr. High School a. k. a. “Kung-Fu” High School, where almost all of the students know one form of martial arts and kids have to worry about getting out alive as well as passing tests. It is explained in rich detail early on about the school’s gang systems and what you can and cannot do within them. Above it all is Ridley, a man in his early 20’s, held back a countless number of years so he can strengthen his in-school drug empire and, by proxy, his hold over the student body.But once Jimmy transfers in, along with his well earned reputation as a badass, it sets off a series of events that threaten to destroy Jen’s life and uproot the brutal hierarchy at the school. This is a book filled with energy, from its many scenes describing what Jen, her brother Cue or Jimmy is doing to an unlucky fellow student, but also when the violence stops and the characters emotions and wants propel the narrative. And it is in this that I found this book’s tragic heart. In a few key scenes that I won’t spoil, Gattis gives you glimpses at a humanity that has been beaten out of the students for very little reason, a humanity embodied by the good hearted doctor Remo, and the ill fated Mr. Wilkes. These people are scene as naïve but by the book’s not quite unhappy but very non-heroic ending, you see the wisdom of their actions, even though it is clear by the end key characters never will. This engaging and well-crafted tale of mayhem and the fear we feel as teenagers is a spectacle to watch from a writer who has never failed to disappoint.

Rating: 5/5