UNCLE RONALD

Disconnected plot elements give this quirky tale from Doyle (Spud Sweetgrass, 1996, etc.) a superficial, slapdash air. Fleeing his abusive father, Mickey washes up at his uncle's farm outside a small Quebec town, where, due to some kindness, he loses his intense fear and penchant for bedwetting. Later his battered mother appears, too, with his father hard on her heels; she and Ronald drive him off, but in his rush to get away he falls beneath a passing train. Meanwhile, the town is engaged in a localized tax revolt, playing a variety of amusing pranks on a hapless squad of assessors. Doyle's anile brand of humor—Mickey's account of what happens when he tries to keep his bed dry by attaching a hose to himself will have some readers wincing, and after the tax collectors' wagon wheels are loosened, ``policemen's nuts'' becomes a running joke—trivializes the story's serious themes, although the serious ultimately weighs down the farcical. Framing the whole episode as a flashback narrated by Mickey at age 112 adds a faintly grotesque, pointless twist. Unlike Spud, this Doyle's a dud. (Fiction. 10-12)