Back Roads
Tawni O'Dell, 2000
Penguin Group USA
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780641854194
Summary
Harley Altmyer should be in college drinking beer and chasing girls. He should be freed from his stifling coal town with its lack of jobs and no sense of humor. Instead he's marooned in the Pennsylvania backwoods caring for his three younger sisters after the shooting death of his physically abusive father and the arrest of his mother. His existence has become a joyless, exhausting blur of day care, mac and cheese dinners, working two minimum wage jobs, and monthly prison visits to a once-devoted mother who seems not only resigned but glad to have handed over the reins of parent and homemaker to her young son.
As he sees it, his life is "lousy with women. All ages, shapes, sizes and levels of purity." Frustrated, overwhelmed, plagued by violent fantasies and trapped by feelings of love and duty, he's a guy in an impossible situation: an orphaned child with the responsibilities of an adult and the fiery, aggressive libido of a teenager.
Life is further complicated when he develops an obsession with the sexy, melancholic mother of two down the road. Family secrets and unspoken truths threaten to consume him as his obsession deepens and she responds unearthing a series of staggering surprises. In the face of each unexpected revelation and through every wrenching ordeal, Harley does the best he can to hold it all together.
Violent and disturbing yet touching and darkly funny, Harley's story is ultimately a search for his own self-worth as he slowly comes to realize that survival is a talent. (From the author's website.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1964
• Where—Indiana, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A. Northwest University
• Currently—lives in Pennsylvania
Tawni O'Dell is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Fragile Beasts, Sister Mine, Coal Run, and Back Roads, which was an Oprah's Book Club pick and a Book-of-the-Month Club Main Selection. She is also a contributor to several anthologies including Becoming Myself: Reflections on Growing Up Female. Her work has been translated into 8 languages and been published in 20 countries. (From Wikipedia.)
Born and raised in Indiana, Pennsylvania, O'Dell graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in journalism. She lived for many years in the Chicago area before moving back to Pennsylvania, where she now lives with her two children and her husband, literary translator Bernard Cohen. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Tawni O'Dell's potent first novel....Tense, conflicted and involving, O'Dell... deftly captures the voice of a teenage boy who's in trouble and facing profound challenges, even if the narrative sometimes feels dramatically inflated in order to prove its point: that evil runs deep and rooting it out is a difficult, thankless chore.
Erik Burns - New York Times
An intense story of family, frailty and dysfunction, set in the coal-mining towns of western Pennsylvania…captivatingly told.
Chicago Tribune
A wonderful book about family relationships…It's nearly impossible to put down. With deft prose, authenticity of character, and sheer tenderness, O'Dell…is the absolute master of her craft.
Denver Post
In Harley, O'Dell has created a hero who's heartbreakingly believable; like Holden Caulfield, he uses caustic humor to hide his pain. Readers will care very much about him and his future, if indeed he has one.
St. Petersburg Times
Nineteen-year-old Harley is left to rear his three younger sisters after their mother is imprisoned for murdering their abusive father in this searing, hardscrabble Party of Five set in Pennsylvania mining country. Doubly resentful because his best friend is off at college, Harley spends his days slogging as a Shop Rite bagger and appliance-shop delivery person, coming home to cold cereal dinners prepared by six-year-old Jody. Harley is bitter about having to take over for his mother--"she still had us kids but we didn't have her"—and he can't shake the feeling that she prefers prison to their home life; a mystery lingers around his father's death. Meanwhile, 16-year-old Amber is sleeping her way through the town's teenage boys and flaunting her body in front of Harley; middle sister Misty, once her father's favorite and his hunting companion, practices shooting. Desperate for relief, Harley finds solace in rough but exhilarating encounters with married Callie Mercer, little Jody's best friend's mother, losing his virginity to her on a muddy creek bank and reveling in her sophisticated, sensitive words. But memories are stirring in his subconscious, and erotic dreams of the Virgin Mary metamorphose into nightmarish sexual visions. In his sessions with a court-appointed therapist, Harley edges closer to understanding his family's twisted dynamic, but it is only when the horrors of the present begin to catch up with those of the past that a series of shattering truths are revealed. By then it is too late for Harley to save everyone he loves, but in sacrificing himself, however hopelessly, he introduces a note of grace. O'Dell's scorching tale touches on all the tropes of dysfunctional families, but her characters fight free of stereotypes, taking on an angry, authentic glow.
Publishers Weekly
A strong, thoughtful first novel that hews to time-honored fiction traditions, rooting a voyage of personal discovery in beautifully rendered particulars of character and place. We dont know exactly what kind of trouble 20-year-old Harley Altmyer is in when the story begins with him being interrogated by police officers, but we quickly learn that hes seen plenty of bad times already. Its been two years since his mother went to jail for shooting his father, and two now dead-end jobs are barely enough to support Harley and his three younger sisters in a dying western Pennsylvania town poisoned and abandoned by the coal industry. Sixteen-year-old Amber screws every guy in sight, daring Harley to do anything about it. Twelve-year-old Misty, favorite of their deceased fatherwhich means he beat her more than he did the other threeseems not to care about anything. Six-year-old Jody writes notes to herself (FEED DINUSORS/ EAT BREKFIST) and keeps secrets shes not quite aware she possesses. Harley keeps his court-mandated appointments with a psychiatrist, but resists her efforts to make him open up. Smart and sharply funny though he ishardly anyone catches his ironyHarley is trapped in the mans role he knows is a crock but cant let go. ODell does an impressive job of getting inside the head of a member of the opposite sex, creating a first-person narration of painful veracity as Harley rants against his mother and defends his father (He didnt like his job, but he went to it every day.... He was a flesh-and-blood man who couldnt stand it if you spilled something). The dysfunctional dynamics of a family scarred by domestic violence and incestuous longings lead to some luridly melodramatic twists, but the authors compassion and love for her characters shine throughout. When ODells plotting achieves the maturity of her character development, shes going to write a really extraordinary novel. This one is pretty darn good.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Harley Altmyer is a complicated figure. He is part saint, part sinner; part child, part man. Discuss these contradictions. Which parts of him do you like? Which do you dislike?
2. How might Harley be different in other circumstances? Could he have had a normal life despite his abusive upbringing if he wasn’t caring for his three sisters?
3. Harley sometimes has violent physical fantasies, many of them aimed at women. Do you think his fantasies are worrisome? Normal? To be expected, given his circumstances?
4. There are very few male influences in Harley’s life. He obviously grew up in a family with fairly traditional gender roles. Yet Harley was not interested in hunting, sports, or other “manly” pursuits. Do you think this was a subconscious rejection of his father’s worst masculine qualities? What effect do you think his father’s scorn had on Harley’s self-esteem?
5. Discuss why Amber is such a tragic figure. Did you feel that way even before the climax of the book? Why does Amber seek safety and comfort in the arms of all the wrong people? Why does it infuriate Harley? Are the reasons more complex than you initially suspected
6. Why does Harley’s mother take responsibility for the shooting? Do you think she did the wrong thing? In what ways was her false confession further abdication of her maternal responsibilities?
7. Discuss the theme of character as it applies to Misty. Do you think she is beyond redemption? Should Harley’s mother have assumed her new role as head of the family and sought help for Misty?
8. Harley’s father is as complicated a figure as Harley. In many ways, he is painted as a decent, hardworking, loving man. Does his casual violence negate all that? And how culpable is Harley’s mother for overlooking the beatings?
9. Sexual tension between Harley and Amber is evident throughout this story. Is a certain portion of this natural when teens reach puberty? Did you find the violent love/hate relationship between Harley and Amber explained by their semi-incestuous past?
10. Do you think it’s significant that Harley’s first sexual relationship is with an older married woman who has children? In what ways does Callie mother Harley? Do you find that interesting in relationship to the themes of abandonment and incest that run through the book?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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