Back Roads - Hardcover

O'Dell, Tawni

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670894184 ISBN 13: 9780670894185

Publisher: Viking, 2000

Synopsis

With his mother in jail for killing his abusive father, nineteen-year-old Harley Altmyer is charged with caring for his three sisters in a backwards Pennsylvania coal town, but despite his fatherly responsibilities, he is still a teenage boy and lusts after the mother of two who lives down the road

About this title

Review:

Not since SE Hinton (The Outsiders) has a female novelist penned such a tough and titillating portrait of lower-class, crime-ridden manhood than Tawni O'Dell in Back Roads. Set in "beautiful, ruined" western Pennsylvania, amid Eat n' Parks and Lick n' Putts, the novel follows Harley Altmyer as he walks a raging, self-conscious line between crime and innocence. Why is he being held by the authorities, and what's he so mad about? In the recent past, it's his mother, who murdered his father and went to jail for life. In the far past, it's Dad himself: an abusive, hopeless man. In the present, it's the responsibility for h is three younger sisters, which makes him fantasize about smashing their faces in until they "spit up bloody macaroni and cheese".

This first novel opens well. O'Dell does an impeccable job of making Harley both brutal and forgivable but Back Roads risks becoming an overabundant affair, pitched high, with a roller-coaster trajectory. Harley' s anger metamorphoses into an almost bloodthirsty lust for his sexy, middle-aged neighbour, which stirs up myriad forbidden family secrets. Misty, it turns out, has been hiding something. Amber revolts. And even Jody's scribbles turn malevolent. While the writing is good throughout, the tension and plotting assume an unpleasant adolescent posture--bodice-ripping passion and mordant gloom combined. Nonetheless, O'Dell's assured and touching portrait of her protagonist emerges unscathed. You will likely remember luckless, fated Harley Altmyer long after his tsunamic tale has receded. --Jean Lenihan, Amazon.com

Review:

A remarkably accomplished debut novel already being compared to The Catcher in the Rye...authentic and captivating. -- Daily Mail

An intense story of family, fraility and dysfunction captivatingly told. -- Chicago Tribune

Heart-breakingly honest...Beautifully written...A journey into the world of dysfunctional despair. -- San Diego Union

Tense, conflicted and involving, o'Dell deftly captures the voice of a teenage boy who's in trouble and facing profound challenges. -- New York Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0670894184
• ISBN 13: 9780670894185
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352