8 May 2020 JUNK BOY by Tony Abbott, HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen, October 2020, 368p., ISBN: 978-0-06-249125-1
“As I walk this land of broken dreams
I have visions of many things
But happiness is just an illusion
Filled with sadness and confusion”
-- Jimmy Ruffin “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” (1967)
The Art Room Door
was wide open
when I passed
and there was sudden noise
an angry voice
growling and spitting
in there
looking in I saw
two girls and a woman
not a teacher
the woman was leaning over
a skinny girl
with curly brown hair
while the other girl
stood shaking at a table
in the corner
her hands
on her face
her face pale
as paper
Ever! Ever! Ever!
was the only word
I heard clearly
the woman said it
through her teeth
then slapped
slapped
slapped
the skinny girl on her face
like she would slap a man
it was the opposite
of a sweaty schoolyard fight
this was cold and sharp as icicles
that cold froze up my chest
while the woman spun
past me
her shoes clacking fast
and angry down the hall
I shrank to nothing
watching
the skinny girl go
shaking shaking
to the other one
and hug her
kiss her wet face
and her lips
oh okay
but the other one
pried herself loose
twisting her shoulders back
and brushed by me
down the hall
the other way
ugh…
I started to say but
shut straight up when
the skinny girl
wheeled around to me
What are you staring at?
nothing
So?
Help me.
help you?
do what?
Take them! Hang them up?
The show’s next week!
this skinny girl
had dark short hair
in a mess of curls
a frayed T-shirt
almost off one shoulder
and faded jeans
and a sort of face
hard not to look at
and her cheek raw red
are you okay?
but she only looked away
scooping up a pile of big paper
art paper
pictures
in her arms
from the corner table
Get the rest. Come on.
get the rest come on
I wanted to ask
what that was all about
the shouting and the slapping
(I got the kissing part)
but already she was
somewhere else in her mind”
Motherless, fifteen-year-old Bobby Lang has been saddled with the nickname “Junk” by the high school bullies. He and his disabled, drunk father live miles off the beaten path, in a leaky shack, surrounded by mountains of junk. Bobby is a struggling kid who does his best to remain invisible at school and at home. Oftentimes, he’s stuck going hungry.
The verse novel JUNK BOY is the story of Bobby and Rachel, the skinny girl with the dark, curly hair. She can be confusing and bossy as hell, but she’s straight with Bobby, and she gets him to speak. As evidenced by a drawing she does of him, Rachel clearly sees something about Bobby that others miss. Bobby cares about her, too, and jumps whenever she demands that he assist or accompany her.
The quirky Rachel is an artist with off-the-chart talent. For obvious reasons, she cannot stand her mother, who wants to have her daughter “reformatted.” Rachel hopes to escape her mother and attend a top-notch art school in New York City, where her father now lives.
Bobby’s father and Rachel’s mother play pivotal roles in the story, along with a local priest named Father Percy.
In equal measure sweet and gritty, and containing superb descriptions of setting, this prose poetry novel would be a quick read except that so many passages just beg to be savored and reread.
Richie Partington, MLIS
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