Toddled Dredge

I have loved McKinley’s work for years, and was excited to read her new novel. I waited eagerly all summer, and finished the book in three days when it finally came out.

Dragonhaven is the story of an adolescent boy who lives in North America’s last dragon preserve. In the world of the novel, dragons are real but elusive, and interfering with them in any way is illegal. During his first overnight hike in the park, Jake Mendoza finds a mother dragon killed during birth by a poacher, and he rescues one of the baby dragons. In order to avoid criminal prosecution and the possible closing of the park, he must raise the dragon secretly.

In many ways, this is McKinley’s most daring novel. Like her vampire tale Sunshine, it is told in a rambling first-person narration, but Sunshine’s narrator was a determined, experienced and likable adult woman. The narrator of Dragonhaven is an uncertain and unfocused fifteen-year-old boy.

The story is not really about the dragon, the story is about Jake. His blindnesses and self-involvement, his resentments and passions form the narrative. We cannot see any of the events of the book except through his eyes. His voice is authentic, but it is authentically adolescent, leaving the reader to decide if they can actually enjoy a 300 page monologue from a teenage boy. Not everyone can.

I found myself impressed that McKinley could so insightfully and accurately portray the feelings of a mother of a newborn (which is effectively what Jake becomes to the desperately needy dragonlet), especially since she has (apparently) never had a baby herself. Exhaustion and confusion and the drive for the survival of the baby, a drive that might feel like love if only you had a little rest - this is all present in Dragonhaven and easily recognizable to anyone who has been the mother of a newborn.

I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but the way that dragons communicate is also handled very well. It is a plot device frequently employed by incompetent authors, but in Mckinley’s hands it enhances the story and highlights the otherness of the two species (human and dragon), rather than becoming a crutch for a poor storyteller.

There are a few missteps in the book. The depiction of scientists as reluctant to accept the challenge dragons pose to current taxonomies rings false. Biologists love new species and new arguments. I kept wondering if the hostility Jake expresses toward “Good Scientists” was derived from McKinley’s feelings as a homeopathist.

I also found unconvincing the lack of change in Jake’s narrative style. When the book opens, he is fifteen. In the closing chapters, he is a father in his mid-twenties, yet he has not significantly changed the way he tells his story. When the book is so realistic in the use of an adolescent voice, this seems a mistake. I can’t imagine writing something at age twenty-five the same way I would have at fifteen.

Dragonhaven is also McKinley’s most political book. The constant threat to the dragon preserve from politicians hangs over every page. At any moment the foolish and ignorant powers-that-be in Washington might do something destructive. This is a necessary part of the plot, but in the last fifty pages of the book, McKinley pulls out all the stops, and throws out phrases like “big oil” and “hardened senior Republican senators.” Hmm. I wonder what she’s talking about. Also near the end, a character is revealed to be gay and in a relationship, and all the good guys accept this blithely. Of course. What else would good guys do.

The political bits at the end did feel a bit like following a guide through the woods only to have her thwack you in the face with a tree branch at the end of the trail. But I still came away impressed with McKinley’s insight into characters different from herself, and her ability to tell a good story.