RaveThe San Francisco ChronicleMaynard is masterful at the offhand details that reveal three people at their wits' ends. Frank, on the lam, offers to buy Henry a puzzle book but needs to give him an IOU ‘since at the moment his funds were limited.’ Adele pours a gallon of milk on the floor after being grilled by a social worker about child custody. ‘It was like she was missing the outer layer of skin that allows people to get through the day without bleeding all the time,’ observes Henry's father about his ex-wife. ‘The world got to be too much for her.’ But the novel's most convincing voice is Henry, poised between little boy and mouthy teen. Wise and wide-eyed and forthright, he's Holden Caulfield without the edge, and the pleasure of this novel comes from listening to his narrative take on what he sees.
