14 July 2005 WRECKED by E.R. Frank, Simon & Schuster/Atheneum/A Richard Jackson Book, October 2005, ISBN: 0-689-87383-2

I was sitting in the mall yesterday, waiting for the Sears auto repair guys to install a new battery in the '89 Camry wagon that our almost-sixteen-year-old will soon be driving. Parked on a comfortable bench, I cracked open what seems to be a pretty fun YA "guy read" that I could possibly be writing about in the near future. I'd just begun the second section of the book, at which point the main character is rhapsodizing about morning and brewing coffee for the caffeine addicts. Then the father is knocking on a door, trying to awaken the main character's big brother. In that moment of reading, during which the father is beginning to raise his voice, I felt myself starting to noticeably tense in anticipation that the dad was going to fully detonate. Here it comes again, I thought.

That's when I realized that I was actually still dealing with memories of a DIFFERENT dad, the dad from E.R. Frank's new book, WRECKED, and that I needed to process how I had been so affected by the painful story of Anna Lawson, her older brother Jack, Anna's friend Ellen, and Jack's girlfriend Cameron Polk.

" 'Jack,' I said. 'I'm not trying to be mean or anything.' I took a sip of ginger ale. He waited. 'But...why do you think Cameron went out with you in the first place?'

"He sighed and looked out the newly opened window. I knew what he was seeing: a telephone wire, that big maple tree, and the streetlight. He started humming.

" 'What?' I wasn't trying to be rude. I was really wondering about it.

"Jack stopped humming. 'Nothing.' He shrugged. 'But you are really superficial.'

"I felt my face get hot. 'What's that supposed to mean?'

" 'Listen,' he said. 'You just implied that there's something about me that is lesser than Cameron.' I opened my mouth to argue, but he kept talking. 'That's what I mean. You think about things that aren't important. Like who's got more status than the other person.' I started feeling nauseous again. 'And you make your decisions about that based on things like clothes and friends and where people sit in the lunchroom and who people hang out with. And if people aren't just like you, you think they're not worthy and that nobody else who matters to you thinks they're worthy. And so you write those people off.' I thought I might throw up. 'I remember when you weren't like that. I remember when you cared about things that mattered and when you weren't always sizing everything and everyone up all the time. And I liked you a lot then.' He stayed where he was, leaning against my dresser, butt on the floor, knees up.

"He wasn't giving me that disgusted look. He didn't have that disgusted tone of voice. He was really talking to me. Trying to tell me something."

Anna's life is about to change. Attending an unsupervised party with friends, Anna downs some booze and then spends some time trying to sober up before she suddenly realizes she's missed her volatile father's curfew. Driving herself and Ellen home, the world turns upside down in an instant, complete with Bono singing the chorus of "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" on the disembodied car radio, and a screaming from outside the car that suddenly ends. The driver of the other car in the head-on collision, we learn, is Cameron Polk.

Anna's long psychological recovery from the fatal accident provides the setting for an unsettling examination of a family that was already riding on the edge of disaster prior to the crash. And when we repeatedly probe the family history, frequently instigated as a result of one of Anna's bloodcurdling nightmares, we find that the past offers a lot more gray than it does black or white.

The fact that there also ends up being some gray areas in terms of the accident makes this aspect of the Lawson family story that much stronger a vehicle for contemplation, discussion, and debate, especially among adolescents who have just, or are about to, get their driver's licenses.

How much of your mind is on your driving? A study being publicized the other day concludes that (in the words of Newsday) "Driving and yakking on a cell phone increase fourfold your chances of ending the trip in an emergency room." It can certainly be asked both of newbie and veteran drivers: "What levels of concentration, attention, and sobriety does it take to ensure that you are being a responsible driver, a defensive driver, a guilt-free driver? How is your driving being affected by alcohol, cell phones, headphones, mochas, Big Macs, flirting, fighting, or whatever the hell is going on while you're piloting that mass of metal at high velocity?

"And my brother's bedroom door slams, and I'm left on the other side, small and alone and not knowing what to do, and Frances is handing me her tissue box, and I feel it like waves, just waves of despair washing over me, and I cry and cry and cry, and my bones are soggy, and then I see Jack's head flat on the table, next to his laptop, and broken glass strewn across the living-room floor, and broken glass and flashlights glittering underneath the dangling earth, and the earth turns into soil, and then a blade of grass grows up out of the soil, and it's joined by other blades, and then there are brown leaves and fingers picking them up one by one, Jack's fingers picking up the leaves, and then his face looking at me, his face saying, If you had just stayed home and picked up the leaves, maybe none of it would have happened..."

I'd hope that many adolescents (and even more so, their parents) recognize that if Anna's dad had been someone she could trust and count on then she could have either called him for a ride or gotten permission to sit tight and not get on the road in the first place. That dad is one piece of work, but YA author and Manhattan psychotherapist E.R. Frank does a superb job of showing us many facets of this man with serious problems.

That she can call us anytime without fear of repercussion is certainly the message Shari and I will again share with our own soon-to-be driver, along with a recommendation that she check out this latest piece of powerful writing by E.R. Frank about a family in crisis.

And turn off your cell phone, damn it!!!

Richie Partington

http://richiespicks.com

BudNotBuddy@aol.com