Chinese Handcuffs

Chris Crutcher’s novel, Chinese Handcuffs, was first published in 1989 and received numerous awards including the ALA Best Book for Young Adults, ALA Best of the Best Books for Young Adults, and the South Dakota YARP Best Books list for 1991. But even though the book has received rave reviews and multiple awards, due to its subject matter it has been frequently challenged or banned.

The novel is set in northern Washington state. The main character Dillon Hemingway is a junior at Chief Joseph High School. He competes in triathlons with aspirations of one day competing in the Ironman competition in Hawaii. Dillon’s brother Preston has committed suicide and Dillon decides to begin writing letters to Preston to help cope with the trauma. Dillon is an athletic trainer for the women’s basketball team. He has grown very close with the team’s star player Jennifer Lawless. Dillon is torn between this new attraction to Jennifer or Jen as she is most often referred to and his brother’s old girlfriend Stacy. Dillon describes a time when he and his older brother Preston brutally beat his neighbor’s cat to death after the cat attacked their dog. Both of the boys regret their actions but do still somewhat agree the cat deserved it.

Dillon’s brother Preston saves up enough money after high school to purchase a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. He then tried to join a biker gang called the Warlocks. He had a terrible accident during an initiation stunt and lost both of his legs. He became a drug addict which causes all kinds of problems for him and his family. His mom and sister end up leaving him, his dad, and Dillon. Preston ends up committing suicide. Dillon describes witnessing his brother’s suicide in great detail because he was there when it occurred. Dillon and Preston went target shooting after Preston had pulled an all night binder. Everything seems okay until Preston tells Dillon that he is tired of always looking at Dillon and seeing what he would have been like if he was “big and strong and so god damn cool”(80). Preston always tells Dillon that he feels guilty because he encouraged the and tried to partake in the gang rape of a girl hanging out at the biker bar Preston was at. He references the time Dillon and Preston killed their neighbor’s cat and says that if he ever sank that low again he would end it. Dillon tries to talk him out of it but ends up pulling the trigger anyways.

Jennifer Lawless is the best player in the district and the best athlete in the school girl or boy. She is a great student but has a secret. Her secret is revealed when  Jen gets a concussion in her most recent basketball game. She has to stay at the hospital over night but she intitially refuses because she doesn’t want her sister Dawn staying at home without her. Jen begins to remember her childhood while in the hospital.She remembers how after her grandpa’s death she began being  molested by her father. She reports  her father when she grows older after watching a good touch bad touch video at school. She tells  her mother but her mother refuses to believe her. She then reports him to a teacher and her father  is arrested and Jennifer is removed from her home until she went through counseling sessions and child protective services deemed her mother fit to care for her.  Her mother later remarried a rich attorney that she only refers to as T.B. T.B. befriends Jen but then begins to rape her frequently. Jen feels trapped because in the past she tried to report him but he got away with it and made Jen seem like a confused child due to her past trauma. T.B. has also threatened to kill Jen’s mom or sister if she tells again.

Dillon ends up getting suspended from school for back talking the principal who constantly harasses Dillon about wasting his athletic talents and will just end up like his brother. Dillon hangs out with Preston’s old girlfriend  Stacy. Stacy has an adopted brother she helps take care of. The brother was adopted from a cousin that Stacy has from North Dakota. Stacy went there for around 6 months after Preston committed suicide.  Dillon gets a strange feeling of deja vu after watching Stacy’s brother eat ice cream at a restaurant they were at. Later on Dillon learns that Stacy’s little brother is actually his nephew. Stacy told Preston and then Preston committed suicide the next day. This helps Dillon release some of the guilt he had carried the past couple of years.

Jen and Dillon decide to try to become more than just friends and go on a date. The date goes horribly because they both act extremely awkward towards each other. Later on Jen finally admits to Dillon what has happened to her and what her step-dad is doing to her. She promises Dillon to not tell anyone because no one will be able to help. Dillon reluctantly agrees. At Jen’s next game she has a meltdown and runs out of the gym towards a bridge. Dillon luckily catches up with her when he realizes she is trying to jump. Dillon grabs her but she fights back knocking out one of his front teeth. He finally gets her to stop and she reveals that T.B. has impregnated her mom. Dillon says he will help her somehow.

Dillon finally comes up with a plan after much deliberation. He contacts Wayne Wisnett a, reporter, from earlier in the novel. He gets a spy camera from him and sets it up in Jen’s room. He ends up catching T.B. raping Jen on camera and threatens to release the video to the public if T.B. doesn’t leave and never contact Jen and the rest of her family again. T.B. agrees and is never heard from again. Jen later tells Dillon that the tape should be made public because T.B. should never be allowed to do this to anyone else. Dillon realizes that him and Jen can never be together after him having to have watched the tape to ensure the evidence was there. He also understands from researching that Jen will have to go through years of therapy before she can be in an intimate relationship. Dillon later pulls up to his neighbor’s old house and goes in and apologizes for killing her cat. The lady is too old and senile to remember but her daughter thanks him and Dillon realizes that somethings just can’t be fixed. The novel then ends when an undercover officer catches and arrests T.B. in Orlando, Florida.

This novel not only delves into sexual abuse and drug addiction. The parts where it depicts Preston’s suicide and drug usage are quite graphic and detailed and it would be easy to see why many adults may take issue with these issues being in this novel. From watching my younger brother deal with his drug addiction I can tell you that this novel helps depict drug addiction in the correct light. The things I have witnessed a drug addict do while intoxicated is shocking and vile which is how the novel depicts it. It doesn’t try to make it cool or seem like the thing that all teenagers do. The sexual violence that is laid out in this novel is graphic and honestly turned my stomach but that is how it would be in real life. The novel could have easily went into more detail but the author chose not to. The point the author was trying to make was that sexual violence is horrific but very real but can also be something that can be treated.

One of the themes of the book is given by using Chinese handcuffs as an example. . No matter how much you struggle you can’t escape its grasp but as soon as you do the opposite you can get out. Dillon then says that this is how some relationships are. Sometimes you have to do the opposite of how you feel and let things go. He applies this to his relationship with Jen and the baggage he still carries from his brother’s suicide. The theme of responsibility is also described throughout the novel. Dillon confides to the women’s head coach, Coach Sherman. He asks from some advice and she describes responsibility as “responding to the world, owning your responses. It isn’t about taking blame or finding out if something’s your fault”(163-164). These lessons are important to adolescents who may be searching for some answers to important problems they may be facing. There are many more within the novel but only if you can look past the parts that are extreme in nature.

Chinese Handcuffs has been challenged or banned due to the graphic violence towards animals, suicide, molestation, gang rape, and language. It has also been challenged due to the disrespectful nature that the main character has towards his principal. Even with these viable reasons for this novel being banned or challenged it still offers an adolescent reader great insight into some of the tragedies that can occur in life. Like it or not terrible things like rape and suicide happen to adolescents and these are graphic and horrible experiences. Having an outlet to help cope with these traumas could be a valuable tool to an adolescent. This novel also contains many other useful themes for adolescents like friendship, questioning what is right and wrong, responsibility, what makes up a normal relationship, and how to overcome tragedy.

Chinese Handcuffs is a powerful book that depicts events in an extremely realistic manner. The tragedies discussed are almost too real for some which has drawn critics but is a novel that adolescents could relate with and grow from.

Crutcher, Chris. Chinese Handcuffs. New York: HarpersCollins Publishers, 1989.          Print.