POSSUM BOY BATTLES THE MULEFOOT MENACE

Debut author Slowpoker presents an offbeat novel about a peculiar boy in the mid-1970s.

Meet 11-year-old Delphus V. White. Delphus believes he is part opossum. He traces the cause of this back to a gov­­ernment experiment in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Regardless of his actual genetic makeup, Delphus lives and learns at a place called Clover Bottom Hospital and School. His Developmental Technician (“which is kind of like our schoolteacher” Delphus explains) is kind Mr. Anderson. Mr. Anderson is a God-fearing Methodist who teaches boys at Clover Bottom to care for pigs. The work is tough, yet the boys have a fondness for their hogs even as the animals are destined for slaughter. Things change when a new boar is brought to the farm. “The Mulefoot,” as he comes to be known, is a 600-pound menace. This is a monster that will kill a curious piglet just for sport. Clover Bottom receives compensation for caring for the Mulefoot because he is a rare breed. Although, as Delphus comes to understand it, the hog’s background is much more sinister. After the Mulefoot bites Mr. Anderson, it’s not long before the teacher develops liver cancer. Could Mr. Anderson, a teetotaler who even insisted on drinking grape juice at Communion, really suddenly develop liver cancer? One night Delphus is visited by a shadowy figure who insists that the Mulefoot is responsible for Mr. Anderson’s unfortunate turn of events. There is only one solution: Delphus must find a way to eliminate the boar.

The world of Clover Bottom and its environs takes some time to build. The reader learns all about Delphus’ friends, his interest in comic books, and how a tough kid named Earz Grissom is really not all that bad. There is even a Christmas scene that is fairly humdrum. In another tame scene, Delphus’ attempt to give Mr. Anderson a homemade gift doesn’t exactly go according to the boy’s plan. Of course Mr. Anderson, the patient educator, is touched by the thought and work that went into the gesture. Finally, the momentum picks up. If the reader is under the impression that the whole narrative will just be a kooky boy and his harmless adventures, they are mistaken. Things get hairy when Delphus gets his assignment to destroy the boar (assuming he did not imagine the whole event, as his friend insists). Both the action and tension get kicked up several notches. Moreover, the text is deeper than one would expect from such a scenario. Regular footnotes provide context: for instance, the Oak Ridge radiation experiments really happened. Delphus’ kung fu–obsessed friend, Sammy, incorporates both comic relief and real Buddhist thought into the storyline. Who would suspect that the Lotus Sutra would be applicable to the problems of some misfit boys in the American South? What is initially a strange tale becomes all the stranger and, ultimately, all the more engaging.

Though slow to start, this intriguing adventure takes many unexpected turns.