Into The Dangerous World by Julie Chibbaro

Into the Dangerous World by Julie Chibbaro

What is art’s place in the world? How does it help people cope with death and pain? How is it a force for healing–and can it be a force for destruction as well? What do we mean by art–is it a found object, is it for public consumption, it is an act of rebellion, or should it be part of established, conventional tastes? All of these questions, and more, rock the interior life of Julie Chibbaro’s narrator for Into the Dangerous World’s, a novel with graphic-novel-aspects incorporated throughout the text as Aurora/Ror/Aura/Octoura tries to find her place in the world after some pretty spectacular losses.

Ror has lived her entire life on a commune with her father, mother, and sister and a dwindling set of hippies who leave the commune to make their way back to the world. When her father tells Ror he’s going to set her free, he sets himself and the house on fire–a drastic end to a drastic life that has isolated the family from society in ways that anybody can see aren’t healthy. Ror, her mother, and her sister move to a Single-Room-Occupancy in New York City and Ror has to begin public school, entering the “dangerous world” she’s been protected from all her life. Here she meets Trey and the crew–and discovers a true love for graffiti.

Ror’s immersion in this literally dangerous world–a world of night excursions into the subterranean tunnels of subways, encounters with the “pigs,” face-offs with other graffiti “crews”–requires her to assess her past and her future in ways she never expected to do. Who is she? What does she want in life? What is she afraid of and what is she willing to do to accomplish her dreams?

A coming-of-age novel for all artists and dreamers.