User:Lomasi.Olathe/sandbox

Plot
In the novel, Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork, the protagonist, Marcelo Sandoval, is a seventeen-year-old who hears music in his head as a result of mild autism, described as a “cognitive disorder” by his father. He attends a school that caters to the needs of special children. “He visits a rabbi. . . . repeats a Shin Buddhist prayer. . . [and] goes to mass with his father”. Arturo, his father who is a lawyer, confronts Marcelo about needing experience in the “real world” and the protagonist is forced to choose to work at his father’s law firm over working at Paterson, his school. For doing this he will be able to attend Paterson his senior year rather than Oak Ridge, the public high school where Arturo wants him to go. At the law firm, Marcelo meets his co-worker, Jasmine. She works with him in the mail room. He also meets two secretaries, Juliet and Martha, Mr. Holmes, who runs the law firm with Arturo, and his son, Wendell, who is “about three years older” than Marcelo. Wendell, described as a character with “the emotional maturity of an eight-year-old” according to Jasmine, attempts to befriend Marcelo. Wendell explains sex to Marcelo, how attraction feels and works, and different types of women. The man’s sights are set on Jasmine, and he makes that clear to Marcelo on one of their lunches. Wendell’s plan is to go on a yacht trip with Marcelo and Jasmine, and while Marcelo “entertain[s himself] for a while up on deck,” Wendell will “take Jasmine below”. Although Marcelo says he will consider it, he does not want to do it but doesn’t want to upset the man either. Wendell declares they have a bond. “The bond between our fathers extends to you and me. Keeping that bond, that balance of power, is extremely important,” Wendell tells Marcelo. Marcelo explains to him that he wants to go to Paterson for his last high school year, and he can only go there if he succeeds at the law firm. Abiding by that bond, Wendell manages to get Marcelo promoted to working for him, organizing files for the Vidromek case. On the first day when he is just helping him rather than actually working for Wendell, Marcelo finds a picture of a girl and he doesn’t want anyone to “take away from [him] what [she] made [him] feel”. So he requests help from Jasmine to locate where the picture was taken, and she is able to find the name of the man: Gerónimo “Jerry” Garcia. Jerry provides Marcelo with the girl’s name, Ixtel, and how he can help her by finding evidence against the Vidromek windshields case. He asks for Jasmine’s help with this, and she manages to find a memo in Spanish they could use against the case. Though, before Marcelo can make any decisions on this, Jasmine takes him on a weekend trip with her to her fictional home in Vermont. The author introduces Jasmine’s dementia-suffering father, Amos, her childhood best friend, Jonah, his brother, Cody, and their father, Samuel. The next morning, Jasmine and Marcelo leave to go on a short camping trip where they lie under the stars and talk, and Marcelo has “butterflies in the stomach,” but, according to him, “they are not unpleasant, [those] butterflies”. Although Marcelo cannot come to a complete decision, Jasmine tells him that he is always welcome to Vermont, and all he has to think about is the peace it brought him. When Marcelo returns to the law firm, during lunch, Wendell approaches him and, in his anger that Marcelo had gone to Vermont with Jasmine alone and still did not convince her of the yacht trip, gives him a note that Jasmine had written to Arturo a year ago. In it, it is implied that something happened inside of Arturo’s office at a Christmas party while Jasmine was drunk, but it was “wrong” and “should never have happened”. Marcelo, although not entirely sure why, feels betrayed by Jasmine and Arturo, and attempts to avoid them both for a while. His mother, Aurora, after noticing that Marcelo’s visits to Rabbi Heschel have become spaced out so much, insists on taking him to her. He talks with her about revenge and making right and wrong choices, even with the right intent. She gives him advice on the subject, mentioning that people can make the wrong and right decisions for the right and wrong reasons. Marcelo, seeing that he wants to make the right choice for the right reason, decides he will hand the memo over to help Ixtel, rather than for revenge on his father. Jerry Garcia, needing only to see the memo, and know it exists, frightens the law firm into paying him seventy-five thousand dollars to keep him quiet. Wendell, though, finds out how the memo got into Garcia’s hands and calls Marcelo out for it, though Marcelo is generally unfazed, only smiling as Wendell finally treats him like a normal person. Called into his father’s office, Marcelo is fired by him, and before he leaves, gives Arturo the letter written by Jasmine. A day later, Jerry Garcia takes Marcelo to the Sisters where he meets Ixtel. He finds out that she will be able to have surgery, and he leaves feeling better, having gotten a kiss on the forehead by her. When he gets back to the law firm the next day, he gets a letter from Arturo that apologizes and explains the contents of Jasmine’s letter. Not long after, Jasmine enters his office and finds out that Marcelo thinks he knows about what happened between his father and her. But she explains that it was only a kiss, and she was eighteen, new, and had a crush on Mr. Sandoval. Marcelo, accepting of this fact, lets Jasmine know that he’d done research, and what he plans on doing after attending Oak Ridge High, which he had no choice but to since he failed at the real world. He plans on going to live in Vermont after he graduates, get a degree at a nearby college in nursing, and raise ponies on the Vermont farm to help with therapy for kids with special needs. Jasmine kisses him on the cheek and, after the internal music had ceased ever since he started working at the law firm, it returns in “the most beautiful of melodies”.

Major Characters
Marcelo Sandoval, the protagonist and a naive boy, is seventeen-years-old at the beginning of the novel. He suffers from mild autism but “is not tied to one demonination”. Jasmine, the protagonist’s boss, is a calm person, and seemingly caring toward Marcelo, even though she prefers another employee over him to work with. Wendell Holmes, Stephen Holmes’s son and Mareclo’s coworker, is a man fascinated with women and money. His “special interest” is women, and he almost forces Marcelo into a bond with him so the protagonist can help him to “get” Jasmine. Arturo, the protagonist’s father, is a powerful lawyer. He has a difficult time admitting that his son has a “cognitive disorder.” Jerry Garcia, a former college friend of Arturo, helps people with cases that they desperately need assistance with. He is the one that convinces Marcelo to help Ixtel Jaetz, and who takes him to see her when he has the chance to. Ixtel Jaetz, the girl in the photo, was orphaned and injured in a car accident involving a Vidromek-windshield vehicle. She lives with the Sisters, and is the first person that has ever ignited any type of feeling from Marcelo. Stephen Holmes, a co-worker of the protagonist’s father, is also a very powerful lawyer. He also has a son, Wendell, that works at the law firm during the summer. He belittles Marcelo for having autism. Aurora, the protagonist’s mother, is an oncologist nurse and a support figure in Marcelo’s life. Rabbi Heschel is a character who gives Marcelo advice when he needs it, or she is just someone to speak with him about his passion, which is God, even though Marcelo is Roman Catholic.

Major Themes
Critics claimed that Marcelo in the Real World deals with issues such as hypocrisy in society, morale, and sacrifice. “Stork’s story lends itself to classroom discussion about hypocrisy in society. In some ways, Marcelo’s journey parallels the life of Siddhartha Gautama,” said Sari Grandstaff, a member of the Saugerties Teachers Association. According to Ilene Cooper, “Marcelo must decide whether to follow his conscience and try to right the wrong even as he realizes that decision will bring irrevocable changes to his life and to his relationship with his father”. Lastly and “most important, he learns that sometimes being uncomfortable, or even miserable, can inspire a person to do great things”.

Reception
Marcelo in the Real World received mostly positive reviews. “Stork introduces ethical dilemmas,” says Publisher's Weekly, “the possibility of love, and other “real world” conflicts, all the while preserving integrity of his characterizations and intensifying the novel’s psychological and emotional stakes.” Mary Burkey agreed, saying that it was a "perfect balance of literary worth and dramatic intensity" and an "unforgettable novel". “It is the rare novel that reaffirms a belief in goodness; rarer still is that one does so this empathetically,” said Jonathan Hunt. "A blend of naivete and wisdom". James Blasingame praised, "A good read for people of all ages, but recommended for high school students due to some adult content . . . . heartwarming novel".

Background
The author lived at a home that was part of L'Arche, a faith-based community. Normal adults lived with those with developmental disabilities. Stork said, “you learn more from them than, frankly, they learn from you. . . . [they] contribute to healing some of the things wrong in our society”. He dealt with making the character, Marcelo, first, gave him the diagnosis after that, and then put in a bit of religion.

Awards and Nominations
Marcelo in the Real World has received a mentionable honor for the “Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award.”

Adaptations
Marcelo in the Real World was adapted into an audiobook that was read by Lincoln Hoppe and published by the Listening Library in 2009.