Logic

It was the cover of Ms. Vernon's novel Logic that first caught my eye; it was her original prose that caught my brain and would not let go. I have met and emailed Ms. Vernon, and have found a refuge like one finds in a friend, in her words. Logic is a tale of a people. Not a black southern people, but of a forgotten people. Logic speaks out about the people who are dying from the inside out, and they know it. These are the people that make up the majority of our society. Even the 13 year old protagonist fully understands her fate. I still do not know if I like Logic like I like ice cream, but the words can not be ignored. Ms. Vernon's prose is different, you will not understand every single connection she is trying to make, but the journey is well worth it. I have not stopped thinking about the novel since I finished it,and I doubt I ever will. This book is like nothing I have ever read. That, to me, is the greatest achievement of an author.

Once I started reading Logic, I couldn't put it down. Had I not had my family to take care of and work to go to, I would have finished it that same day I started. Olympia's writing guides you into a world of a young teenage girl being molested by her father and ignored by her mother. She spends her days with the old white lady across the street or her young transsexual friend who is also trying to discover who he is and how he fits into the puzzle that is their world. You want to make friends with the characters in Logic, to become bosom buddies and have them cry out all what's going on in their heads. I found myself wanting to step inside the book, wanting to kill the wimpy father and the mother for allowing him to hurt their daughter. Olympia's command of literary language is beautiful and raw. Her bluntness is refreshing and provokes you to tell the truth about everything rather than say what others want to hear. This is how powerful she is. She is truly an awesome writer. This book is a must read.

...because it's exactly what this brave book is. Its main character, an innocent girl named Logic who's been damaged in about every way a human person can be, nevertheless has her own internal logic, seasons, reasons, and yearning for God. She makes angel wings out of old coathangers, and the book really begins to hit its stride early on when she asks her defeated parents how to spell the word Heaven. Logic is pregnant by her own father; her mother, willfully ignorant, wishes Logic had died in that accident that damaged her brain. But there's nothing wrong with Logic's heart/soul, which knows unspeakable secrets. She gouges out the eyes of her doll and staples its lips shut. Even the family next door can't help her, especially after the prostitute mother dies and those kids' own fates are now up in the air. By the time you find out why Logic wants to spell Heaven, you'll be under a spell yourself in this dark dreamworld. Olympia Vernon writes like an angel new to planet earth, speaking languages of the soul, not the mind. Her words swoop like flight, fall like leaves, layer upon layer, in an almost painterly way: impressionistic, gut-wrenching, startlingly beautiful. Flashes of wit and love light up the darkness from time to time, but it always falls again and its only bright spot is Logic's inner radiance. It seems to me that Vernon has almost had to invent her own vocabulary here, because "dark" is not dark enough for this world, nor is "innocent" adequate to describe this lovely lamb-like child who is at the center of the novel. Vernon has had to find a way to go beyond conventional narration, and damn if she hasn't pulled it off. Her pages just bleed. You close the book, reach for a kleenex, and just go "Wow".

13-year old Logic Harris is coming to terms with the "butterflies in her stomach." Written off as "retarded", secretly unwanted by her mother and victimized by her father, she finds comfort and true acceptance in "The Tall One," an adolescent, cross-dressing male neighbor who lives across the road. The assorted characters in Logic either display the dark sides of human nature or are deemed society's rejects, with the notable exception of the old woman, who symbolizes the selflessness that has always been the redemption of humankind. Logic, with its vivid imagery; and use of metaphor and symbolism, conveys a powerful message about the desperation and despair that accompanies humiliation. Again, Ms. Vernon delivers another masterpiece. It is a wonderful read, and I highly recommend it.

Olympia Vernon is a national talent that continues to eclipse the reader's consciousness with dizzying word portraits that tell with resounding truth of lives experienced without pity. Logic, her latest work, employs characters that exist within worlds built upon memory, perception, and traditions steeped in the South and the Western religious perspective. Vernon's words do not simply rise from the page; they take flight as words dissolve into metaphorical and allegorical geographies of the mind. Told from the mind of a "retarded" girl too simple, yet too proud to regard herself as disabled, Logic's story is of the sensual and the tactile. The intimacy of flesh is revealed through the story, and Vernon does not allow the reader pause to reflect upon their pity for these characters. Instead, the beauty of Vernon's words is in the immediacy of their actions and visions. We are in the hands of a master storyteller whose characters will live unashamed within America's history of the inequities against ignorance, the poor, and the exploitation of the innocent.