CENTER LINE

by Joyce Sweeney ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 2, 1984

Winner of Dalacorte's first annual prize for a YA-fiction debut, this is a wildly uneven novel with a fiercely potent premise: five motherless teenage brothers who run away from home to escape a violent, alcoholic, abusive father. Shawn is 18, intelligent, a surrogate father; Steve is 17, artistic; Chris is 16, super-bright, sensitive, irresistible to women; Rick is 15, sullen, into cigarettes and pills; Mark is 14, musically talented, a born actor. And all five Cunnigan brothers take off in Dad's car one night--when Shawn decides that their father's longtime beatings have gotten dangerously out-of-hand. From Ohio they go to Kentucky and Indiana, staying for a while at a flea-bag hotel in seedy Muncie--where Steve falls in love with a 26-year-old art teacher. Next, as their money (Shawn's college fund) runs out, they spend some miserable time in cold Michigan. (Mark gets seriously ill but recovers somewhat miraculously.) Then it's south to Florida, dropping marriage-bound Steve off in Muncie and ditching the stolen car in Jacksonville: the remaining foursome hitchhikes down to Ormond Beach (near Daytona), where they get jobs on the beach and pier, start to save money and start a new life. But Rick's ever-simmering resentments eventually erupt; his provocations trigger the ""psychotic"" violent side that Shawn has always strived to repress. After Shawn beats him up badly, Rick goes to the police and Tells All, betraying his brothers. And so all the boys are then arrested, with charges of assault, car-theft, vagrancy, and truancy in the offing--though there'll be a mostly happy ending (for all but Rick), thanks to a nice D.A. and a nice judge. This court-hearing finale, with more than a few surefire sentimental moments, is marred by saccharine, corny excesses. Likewise, throughout, Sweeney alternates between low-key, am using, affecting details and unconvincing, stagey overkill. Her prose, too, is erratic, sliding from serviceably plain to stiff and prosy (""Rick was totally impotent against such an onslaught""). And the psychology, while often effortfully explanatory, is generally shallow. Still, the inherent grab--brotherly sacrifices, on-the-road ordeals, basic decency triumphant--frequently comes through with emotional, even tear-jerking clout; and if this crew of bright, attractive, sexy boys isn't fully realistic, that may only enhance the commercial potential here.

Pub Date: April 2, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1984

Categories: FICTION