His work on screen, on stage and PhD from Yale University remind us that James Franco is no stranger to the arts. In his debut novel Palo Alto, Franco uses a series of vignettes to tell the stories of troubled teenagers growing up in Franco’s hometown: Palo Alto. Each narrator is different but all are struggling through adolescence. Though his education shines through his writing style, as a fan of his work in film I am afraid this book fell short of my expectations. However, the novel was successful enough to have already been adapted to film starring the author himself, Emma Roberts, and Nat Wolff.
Franco provides a sense of believability to his characters and their stories but I found that the further I progressed through one, the less I liked the characters. Vulgarity in books has never truly bothered me so long as it is necessary. Vulgar and explicit language and situations are often necessary because it helps us to sympathize and understand the domestic life of its characters. When used unnecessarily, vulgarity can distance the reader from the narrative by rendering the characters unlikable. Chinatown in Three Parts is a perfect example of Franco’s inability to create likable characters. The narrator, Roberto, and his friends emotionally manipulate a girl named Pam and convince her multiple times to perform sexual acts. I wanted growth from Roberto but his apathy remained until the very end. I also wanted so desperately to feel bad for the masochistic Pam, but the only thing I was given was the fact that she was an orphan and the reader was only told of the events through Ronny’s perspective. After finishing Palo Alto, I realized that there were eleven stories, and not a single character that I sympathized with or cared for.
I did often found myself swooning over Franco’s use of imagery. “The atmosphere was a held breath, and the shadowed house fronts were sleeping dogs” is just one of the many captivating lines Franco uses. However, I found that Franco was overly location-specific. I could tolerate a few street names as they bring a sense of realism to the work but the amount used was overwhelming. I also found him describing characters and details that served no purpose to the plot. I do not care about what the person who picked a fight with Ronny in Lockheed looked like; I only care about what he did and said. Most of the descriptions were also repeated or said in very similar ways. From a very young age, my mother always warned me of the dangers of redundancy. I was scorned for saying phrases like, “whole entire” or “same exact”. Therefore, redundant language has become a pet peeve of mine. In this particular novel, the redundant language was incessant: “Jordan middle school reopened because there were so many kids in Palo Alto. More kids than the old generation”.
I do not believe that this book suffers from poor authorship; I believe it lacked thorough editing. As a whole, this novel was nothing more than mediocrity but it is important to keep in mind that not many debut novels are this well written. James Franco is very sound stylistically, which makes for a very promising literary future. Despite not enjoying this novel, should Franco publish another novel I would most definitely check it out. The film adaptation of Palo Alto is to be released this September.
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