It's the story of a young native American half-breed boy whose mother was an alcoholic, partly because his father had run off as soon as he found out she was pregnant, and whose head was run over by a mail truck when he was only seven. Despite serious injury to his skull the boy survives and the book follows his "adventures" through intensive care, rehab, a school for unwanted native American children with various problems, and a Mormon foster home, until he eventually fetches up in a surprising place that I won't spoil by revealing.
For only the second time in my life (the first time being with John Brunner's Shockwave Rider) I persevered with a book against all reason to find that the last third of the text made up for the hard grind of the first two-thirds. And it was a hard grind. From one perspective the story is unremittingly grim. Schoolboy violence, drugs, murder, parental abuse, societal abuse, Edgar runs the gamut. Yet Udall's narrative retains a light touch with moments of laugh-out-loud humour. Even so, by halfway through I still hadn't developed much in the way of caring about the main character. Things began to pick up a little once he arrived at the Madsen household and from there on the book began to give something back, turning eventually into a story I'm glad I read, even though I'll almost certainly never read it again.
With a couple of notable exceptions the book club denizens agreed, in general, with my feelings, giving the book relatively high scores and fifth place out of the 42 books we've now read. (You can see the latest club league table here, if you're interested)
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