HOPE HOUSE

Bond’s debut novel subtly tells the stories of several staff members and residents of a group home for troubled teenage boys in 1980s Kentucky.

As the book opens, its primary narrator, AWOL—named for his penchant for escape attempts—is 14, and the story follows him over the next few years. The structure is relatively episodic, with the two main threads being AWOL’s own coming-of-age and the efforts of Watts, an insightful staff member, to improve the lives of his charges. “Watts had prided himself on knowing when there was still a kid on the inside,” AWOL says—but Bond also includes allusions to Watts’ own struggles and flaws. Bond’s close attention to detail, including his use of the word “peer” to describe the home’s residents, gives a precise sense of the language and routines of the place, such as residents being assigned chores in the kitchen and finding stories by Dickens in old issues of Reader’s Digest in the library. AWOL uses the word “peer” from the first page without explaining its context, a device that helps the reader see life through the eyes of these young men. And every once in a while, AWOL makes an observation that breaks your heart: “I’d see teenagers and wonder if I could still be one.” AWOL’s own skill at helping his fellow teens write letters suggests one path forward for him, but his reckoning with what adult life might entail—including the realities of class and public hostility toward “juvenile delinquents”—helps explain his tendency to flee whenever he has the chance. And as the narration makes clear, the realities of the teens’ lives feed their desire for escape: “We ran when our cousins were killed and Watts wouldn’t let us go to the funeral. We ran when peers made fun of our teeth.” This is a slow-burning but moving account of adolescence under duress.

A haunting story of the search for a better life.