Welcome to Spencerville, Virginia, 1977. Eight-year-old Rocky worships his older brother, Paul. Sixteen and full of rebel cool, Paul spends his days cruising in his Chevy Nova blasting Neil Young, cigarette dangling from his lips, arm slung around his beautiful, troubled girlfriend. Paul is happy to have his younger brother as his sidekick. Then one day, in an act of vengeance against their father, Paul picks up Rocky from school and nearly abandons him in the woods. Afterward, Paul disappears.
Seven years later, Rocky is a teenager himself. He hasn’t forgotten being abandoned by his boyhood hero, but he’s getting over it, with the help of the wealthy neighbors’ daughter, ten years his senior, who has taken him as her lover. Unbeknownst to both of them, their affair will set in motion a course of events that rains catastrophe on both their families. After a mysterious double murder brings terror and suspicion to their small town, Rocky and his family must reckon with the past and find out how much forgiveness their hearts can hold.
Hardcover, 320 pages
Published January 5th 2016 by Algonquin Books
ISBN 161620382X (ISBN13: 9781616203825)
My Thoughts
This was a sort of off-beat story, quirky, a little jumbled. Some book club members complained that it was as if the author threw in everything but the kitchen sink. I liked the story well enough, but it was a bit YA "coming-of-age". We found in our book club discussion that it is one of those books with moments you don't fully understand, and then someone will explain, "No, remember he..." and someone else will say "Oh! I missed that!" or "Oh, I thought..." There's a lot going on, and it's easy to miss or misunderstand little things. But this is a good pick for those who like coming-of-age stories.
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The Cerebral Girl is a forty-something blogger just digging her way out from under a mountain of books in the deep south of Florida.
This book was the July 2017 selection for the Cape Coral Bookies.
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