LITTLE BOY BLUE

by Edward Bunker ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1980

Alex Hammond is eleven when brought to a California boarding school--the latest in a string of way-stations during the late Thirties that the mother-abandoned boy has been bounced through by his alcoholic, ineffectual father. A smart kid who hates this neglect, Alex runs away; in order to eat, he breaks into a grocery and, when surprised by the owner, shoots the man with a gun found under the counter. Thus begins a life of incarceration and escape, tragedy (his seedy father dies in a car crash after hearing of Alex's arrest) and resentment, that runs in a basically undeviating line. Each of Alex's teenage years makes him more of a problem for the law: mental hospitals, reform schools--each of which becomes another calcification of his spirit. His fearlessness, temper, and dauntlessness all spiral; he fights when he can't think to do anything else--which is most of the time. And when the moment comes when Alex realizes that he's cut himself off, so young, from ever getting back into society, his anger and drive only increase. A the end, then, Bunker (No Beast So Fierce, The Animal Factory) leaves us with a 15-year-old Alex bleeding from a shotgun wound after a botched liquor store robbery--alive but hopeless. The sense of Thirties and Forties barrio in Los Angeles, the redlight districts, the juvenile halls, are all exact and confining: the book is laid out like an autopsy specimen. Yet Bunker, clearly writing autobiographically, avoids the ""flat"" tone of most outlaw books by giving Alex always another day, and another. That none of those days can ever be any good is the tragedy and the power of this depressing, impressive novel.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1980

ISBN: 0312195044

Page Count: -

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1980

Categories: FICTION