What do Frank Lloyd Wright, a Japanese stone fish, pentominoes, H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man, and three sixth graders all have in common? Give up? Clearly you have not yet read Blue Balliett’s The Wright 3, the latest juvenile mystery from this very interesting author.
I’ll confess: I have read it, and I’m still working out the interweavings of all of the above and more. Balliett’s books are not for the faint-hearted. She writes for young people (I’d say 10-14 is the target audience here) and she respects their minds. Her plots are layered and complex, full of odd combinations of clues, quirky letter and number patterns, codes, and mystical "coincidences."
The Wright 3 brings back friends Calder and Petra whom we met in Balliett’s first novel Chasing Vermeer. Once again, the kids are involved in a mystery surrounding a piece of great art and once again they have a chance to save it. This time out they are also helped by Calder’s old friend Tommy, who moved away near the beginning of Chasing Vermeer but has now resettled with his mother in their home in Hyde Park and rejoined Calder and Petra’s sixth grade class.
Tommy is central to this story because his apartment overlooks the Robie House*. The Robie House was built by Frank Lloyd Wright around 1910, and it’s the grand piece of art that the children are out to save. Because the building has grown old and damaged and renovations are so costly, it’s about to be sold off piece-meal to various museums. The kids are outraged that anyone thinks the house can just be broken apart like that because they realize that its artistry comes in the fact that it’s a home, whole and in one piece, and the integrated vision of one man. Taking out its windows and selling them to a museum would be like taking scissors to an original Van Gogh. Spurred on by their activist teacher Ms. Hussey (also a repeat character from the earlier book) the kids stage a demonstration to try to make their point. But it may be too little, too late, especially since odd things keep happening around the house – accidents to workmen, people seeing strange shadows and lights when no one should be there.
The plot thickens when Tommy trespasses on the Robie property one day and finds a stone fish buried in the garden. He’s pretty sure it’s valuable, and it turns out that it is – not only worth a lot of money, but of significant historical value. He hides it in the bowl of his pet fish at home, but before he can decide what to do with it, his house is broken into and ransacked and the stone fish is stolen.
Balliett’s story-telling style is, I think, highly unusual. I don’t know of anyone who’s traversing quite this territory, at least not for pre-teens and young teenagers. I’ve heard her work compared to Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, which I’ve not read. Perhaps the comparison comes because she is fascinated with codes and puzzles. She frequently employs hidden or mysterious messages that come to her young sleuths in odd ways: through underlined quotes in a used book found in a bookstore bin, through the letters spelled out by the pentominoes Calder carries around in his pocket, through dreams, shadows and strangers glimpsed through a window, and many other mysterious and "coincidental" occurrences. There’s a definite mystical bent to the story which lends it some fascination, and yet can make the overall pattern a bit hard to pick up.
Balliet’s prose is more than readable, and her characters, at least the young ones, are memorable and sympathetic. I especially like Petra (but then I’m a girl!) who has fuzzy hair and wears glasses. At 12, she’s just beginning to get to a slightly awkward and self-conscious stage with Calder and Tommy, but for the most part, she’s highly confident. Petra loves to read and write, and it’s usually she who finds the clues in books – this time out in H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man.
Calder is, in many ways, the hero of the stories and their heart. He’s a math geek with a fascination for numbers and codes, and people can usually hear him coming because of the pentominoes he carries around in his pocket. Balliett explains pentominoes ("a mathematical tool consisting of twelve pieces...each...made up of five squares that share at least one side") in a note at the beginning of the novel, and illustrations are even provided. Each of the twelve is associated with a letter, and Calder likes to draw them out at random and guess what the letters may be telling him. In this book, at one point he draws out an F, and L and a W (for "Frank Lloyd Wright," he thinks) and he has a mystical sense that the Robie House, with its complex etched shapes in the art-glass windows and its layered walls, is trying to speak to him.
Tommy is probably the least mystical of the trio, but then they’re just becoming a trio in this book, so part of the story involves how they’re working out that new three-fold friendship and Tommy’s place on the sleuthing team. He has a fascination with fish and calls himself a "finder." He likes to dig for things and discover artifacts.
The grown-up characters, with the possible exception of Ms. Hussey, are not nearly as well-realized. That’s possibly purposeful – part of the message Balliett seems to be getting across is that kids can do lots of things on their own (like solve mysteries that lead to the saving of great art). I’m not quite sure (pesky parent that I am) how I feel about that message, especially given the fact that these particular kids get themselves into some rather dangerous situations without telling any adults what they’re up to. Yes, I know it’s fantasy, but I’m still not entirely comfortable with that scenario.
I won’t go into more detail about the plot: partly because I don’t want to give it away, and partly because if I tried to summarize, I’m not sure how plausible it would sound. Weird coincidences and odd combinations of events abound in this book, and while it makes for fun and interesting reading, it does sometimes stretch one’s suspension of disbelief. I also struggle with the fact that Balliett, in her understandable attempt to tie up odd loose ends at the climax, seems to rush that process a bit. For a book with such a quirky overall tone, the ending gets tied in a big bow and feels almost too neat. Though at least it’s happy.
Brett Helquist (best known as the illustrator of Lemony Snicket’s books) provides interesting black and white drawings throughout the novel, some of which contain hidden clues. His artistic style melds well with the strange and mysterious tone of the story.
All in all, I like that Balliett is trying something new. I enjoy her young characters and the way she manages to slip in facts about art and art history. I would certainly recommend this book for any young people who live in the Chicago area, as well as for any who enjoy mysteries and are perhaps looking for fiction that's new and different. Frankly I would enjoy hearing a twelve year old’s take on Balliett’s work!
Although the mystery felt a bit weak, I did enjoy this one more than Chasing Vermeer, perhaps because I really love Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture and have visited one of his houses (though not the Robie House). Still I did feel there was something a bit ragged about the story overall: what is it really saying about coincidences and an overarching (providential?) pattern to our lives? I never feel quite sure about what Balliett is trying to do and what themes she’s trying to get across, but nevertheless, I find her work intriguing. This book won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I’m curious to see where she takes these characters next.
~~befus, 2007
The Wright 3
by Blue Balliett, illustrated by Brett Helquist
Scholastic Press, 2006
0439693675
*The Robie House, by the way, is real. It exists right where Balliett places it in her story. But as she explains in her author’s note at the end, the house is currently being renovated and is not in danger of being broken up and sold. Like all Wright houses, this one is a marvel. You can learn more about it here: http://www.wrightplus.org/robiehouse/robiehouse.html
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