Pay
It Forward
By Debra A. McCampbell, KidActors
PROLOGUE
"Maybe someday I’ll have kids of my own. I hope so. If I do,
they’ll probably ask what part I played in the movement that changed the world. And
because I’m not the person I once was, I’ll tell them the truth. My part was
nothing. I did nothing. I was just the guy sitting in the corner taking notes.
My name is Chris Chandler and I’m an investigative reporter. Or at
least I was. Until I found out that actions have consequences, and not everything is under
my control. Until I found out that I couldn’t change the world at all, but a
seemingly ordinary twelve-year-old boy could change the world completely --- for the
better, and forever --- working with nothing but altruism, one good idea, and a couple of
years. And a big sacrifice…"
– Copyright ©1999 Catherine Ryan Hyde
Almost before fans of THE SIXTH SENSE wonder if this book is any good, we wonder will
this be a good movie for Haley Osment to follow up his tremendous turn in our favorite
film with? The timing seemed oddly fortuitous when this not-yet-published novel became a
pre-production film on the Warner slate a couple of months ago. Haley’s casting just
felt right. The casting of 1999’s other best actor, Kevin Spacey also comes off as
particularly timely. The film is underway in Las Vegas in these last days before Oscar
2000. Add in the fact that the top cast is rounded out by Oscar-winner, Helen Hunt as
Haley’s mom and you just gotta love this package.
Mimi Leder (DEEP IMPACT) is a good director. Leslie Dixon (THE NEXT BEST THING) can be
a very good screenwriter. Their body of work is respectable. The Warner factor worries me
a bit but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. If I seem a bit lukewarm
on these issues, don’t let it bother you too much. The fact is the source material is
so good enough and the actors are so talented they should succeed in rising above any
liabilities they encounter. If the producers don’t muck it up too badly, the artists
involved may bring us one of the best films of the coming year.
Here, I have to tip my hat to the book’s author, Catherine Ryan Hyde. It’s a
beautiful book.
But the question raised in the beginning remains. Will we love Haley in PAY IT FORWARD
as much as we loved him in THE SIXTH SENSE? We just might.
"THE THING ABOUT TREVOR WAS THAT HE WAS JUST LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE, EXCEPT FOR
THAT PART OF HIM THAT WASN’T." --- Reuben St. Clair
Trevor McKinney is a good boy. He has a paper route and does okay in school. Some
people in his small California burg know that his mother is a recovering alcoholic and
that he doesn’t know where his father is. Even though he’s a little quiet,
people generally like him. When his new Social Studies teacher, facially disfigured
Vietnam vet, Reuben St. Clair, challenges his class to, "Think of an idea for world
change and put it in action", Trevor is intrigued. He dreams up a concept called
"pay it forward". Give something of yourself to three people in need. Tell them
that instead of paying you back, they must pay it forward to three other people who will
each go on to pay it forward to three more people, etcetera ad finitim. You do the math.
It actually could change the world. If only people could live up to it.
Trevor’s plan formulates around a drug-addicted, hard-luck homeless man named
Jerry who seems very unlikely to follow through on his end of the bargain. But without
demands or expectations, Trevor begins his experiment by giving Jerry money, letting him
clean up at the McKinney house and helping him find a job. Surprisingly, Jerry takes to
the system like an old hand at first. He eventually wins a grudging trust from
Trevor’s mom, Arlene, by attempting to repair her perpetually broken-down truck. But
Jerry stumbles and lands in jail. Disappointed but not beaten, Trevor next sets about to
make widowed neighbor Mrs. Greenberg’s day a little brighter by fixing up her beloved
but run-down garden --- for free. He even spends time with her, they talk and grow to like
each other. He only asks that she in-turn pay it forward to three more folks. A kindness
which she is determined to do.
For his final favor, Trevor chooses to bring something that’s long been missing to
the two people he cares most about --- Mr. St. Clair and his mother. And he has a wild
idea of how to make them both happier. He decides to play matchmaker. What he can’t
really understand is that his teacher’s scars are more than just physical. He has, in
fact, not been involved with a woman since before he went to war, before his life was
changed forever, before he lost half his face everything he loved. Trevor also
doesn’t really understand the depth of his mother’s pain. His father, Ricky
comes and goes. This time, he’s been gone for more than a year. No one expects him to
return. Except maybe for Arlene. She doesn’t know if she really loves him or if
she’s just hanging on to something that used be… more. She holds a tenuous hope
that one day, Ricky will wake up and at least be a father to his son.
Trevor’s ploy to get Mr. St. Clair and his mom together is simply to tell each of
them that the other wants to speak to them and to suggest it be over dinner at the
McKinney house. Of course his ruse is exposed instantly and the ridiculousness of the
boy’s romantic notion embarrasses both the adults. Still, all Trevor can see is two
lonely people, equally matched in their stubbornness and their vulnerability. And maybe
he’s right.
Maybe he’s right about all of it. Maybe something so very simple as helping
someone and asking them to help someone else in return is all it would take to change the
world for the better.
For those of you who are short on time and want to experience this story now, I suggest
the audiobook version. It’s one of those rare audio editions that is acted by a large
cast, rather than just read by one person. As you listen to the assured, ironic delivery
of the boy who reads Trevor, it is very easy to imagine Haley in the film role.
The ending is bittersweet and I can’t wrap my head around the idea of what this
might look like on film but I will not reveal it here or anywhere else. In fact, I ask
that those of you who choose to read the book or listen to the audio before the movie
comes out not reveal it to those who want to wait. That’s not to suggest a wicked
twist ala THE SIXTH SENSE. It’s just that you don’t wanna know beforehand.
Really. Reviewer discretion is advised.
OTHER REVIEWS
From Kirkus Reviews
The buzz is big for this heartwarming, funny, and bittersweet story from
Hyde (Funerals for Horses, not reviewed) about a teenager's plan to better the world. It
all starts with a man and a boy. The man, Reuben St. Clair, a social-studies teacher who
believes in positive thinking but whos also a badly disfigured, black Vietnam vet
struggling daily with the way people look at him, assigns the following for extra credit:
``Think of an idea for world change, and put it into action.'' The boy, Trevor McKinney,
takes the assignment to heart, not only because his mother, Arlene, is battling with
alcohol and his father's gone missing, but also because he likes Reuben and begins to
think maybe his mom would too. Trevor develops a pyramid payback scheme of good deeds,
with the flow of payment reversed, and starts by finding three people he believes he can
help, each of whom pledges to help three others. The first, a homeless addict/mechanic,
receives Trevor's paper-route earnings and a place to shower before a job interview, but
then blows his first paycheck on cocaine and ends up in jail. The second, an elderly woman
on the paper route, receives all the yard- and garden-work she needs for free, but later
dies in her sleep. The third, Reuben and Arlene considered together as a dysfunctional
unit, are brought together by Trevor so they can help each other out of loneliness and
just maybe give him a dad in the bargain, but they mix like oil and water. Apparently
negative results prove to be just the opposite, however, and, unbeknownst to Trevor, his
project snowballs into a national phenomenon with no end in sight. Invited to Washington
to be honored by President Clinton, Trevor decides to do one more good deed, a selfless
act that again succeeds beyond his wildest expectations. A quiet, steady masterpiece, with
an incandescent ending. (Film rights to Warner Bros.; Book-of-the-Month featured
alternate/Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selection; $250,00 ad/promo; author tour)
-- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Book Description
THE MIRACLE OF INNOCENCE
The story of how a boy
who believed in the goodness of human nature set out to
change the world.
Pay It Forward is a wondrous and moving novel about Trevor McKinney, a
twelve-year-old boy in a small California town who accepts the challenge that his teacher
gives his class, a chance to earn extra credit by coming up with a plan to change the
world for the better -- and to put that plan into action.
The idea that Trevor comes up with is so simple and so naïve that when others learn of
it they are dismissive. Even Trevor himself begins to doubt when his "pay it
forward" plan seems to founder on a combination of bad luck and the worst of human
nature.
What is his idea? Trevor chooses three people for whom he will do a favor, and then
when those people thank him and ask how they might pay him back, he will tell them that
instead of paying him back, they should each "pay it forward" by choosing three
people for whom they can do favors, and in turn telling those people to pay it forward.
It's nothing less than a human chain letter of kindness and good will.
Does his plan work? No. And yes -- it works wonderfully, but only after it has seemed
to Trevor that maybe all his efforts have been for naught. The first person he chooses to
help -- a homeless man to whom he gives his paper-route money so he can make himself
presentable enough to find a job -- disappoints him by returning to a life of dissolution
and eventually ending up in jail. The second is a lady on his paper route, old and alone
and infirm, and with a garden that needs tending. No sooner has Trevor begun to help her,
however, than she goes and dies on him.
The third person Trevor hopes to help is his teacher, Reuben St. Clair, a scarred,
bitter, untrusting man who seems to come truly alive only when in front of his class.
Trevor's goal is to match him with his mother, Arlene, a pretty, hardworking woman who has
raised Trevor more or less alone, but who Trevor feels has a lot to offer the right man.
It proves not to be a match made in heaven, though, and Trevor's dismay only deepens as he
watches these two people come so close to achieving the connection he wants for them, only
to turn away at the last moment.
Failure seems inevitable, and Trevor is resigned. What he doesn't realize, however, is
that there really is a good side to human nature, and that the tiny seed of kindness and
caring he planted has taken root. In neighborhoods in other California towns, and as far
away as Los Angeles, there are others following the rules of "paying it
forward." Soon fame comes knocking, bringing with it excitement and an unforeseen
tragedy.
In the end, Pay It Forward is the story of seemingly ordinary people made
extraordinary by the simple faith of a child. In the tradition of the successful and
inspirational television show Touched by an Angel, and the phenomenally
successful novel and film Forrest Gump, Pay It Forward is a work of
charm, wit, and remarkable inspiration, a story of hope for today and for many tomorrows
to come. |
