The novel, written by David Guterson, centres on the murder trial of a fisherman charged in the mysterious drowning of another in the 1950s. The story explores many issues, including lingering racism after World War II – the accused is Japanese-American – in a community that saw many of its residents sent to internment camps. [emphasis mine]"Exploring issues": the prime directive of every work of fiction. Novels are just like little therapists, but you don't have to pay by the hour!
This whole thing is massively stupid – not just because it has managed to give the Peel school board about a year's worth of terrible publicity and has made them all look like yokels, but also because every kid in that school and elsewhere is going to immediately go out and get a copy of the stupid thing, looking for the dirty stuff that got it banned in the first place.
Not to mention all the time, money, and energy that now has to go into defending that yawner of a book. Can't they just ban Lolita again?
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