An ordinary American family must cope with the unthinkable in Wolf Boy by Evan Kuhlman. The novel chronicles the year after the beloved son and brother of the Harrelson family dies in an automobile accident in 1993 Illinois. Though the story is told primarily by thirteen-year old Stephen Harrelson, you get a carefully drawn portrait of the Harrelson family as well as both boy's girlfriends. (**Possible Spoilers to follow**).
How do you cope with the anguish of losing your older brother? For Stephen release comes with the creation of a superhero, Wolf Boy, which he and his quirky girlfriend, Nicole, write and illustrate. Crispy, the younger sister, channels her emotions into a crush on singer, Marky Mark. Helen, their mother, (in one of my favorite scenes in the book--not sure what this says about me) whacks a clerk with a Swingline stapler after receiving dozens of death certificates (thanks to a computer glitch) of her dead son, Francis. Gene, her husband, begins an affair with a former employee. This is a family "spiraling out of control" as the bookjacket says.
What I thought was so effective about this book was the actual inclusion of Stephen's cartoon characters. Altough this is primarily just a novel, there are also graphic elements included. Interspersed within the story are the "adventures" of Wolf Boy, which is actually the gradual acceptance of Francis's death by Stephen. As always, I don't like to give away too many details of a novel, but I thought Wolf Boy was put together quite nicely. You get a real sense of how awful this would be to go through for the entire family, but there are still humorous elements within the story as well.
I was approached by author Evan Kuhlman to read this book, and I am glad I had the opportunity to do so. I had not heard of Wolf Boy (though the publisher is an imprint of Random House), and I suspect I would have passed it up at the bookstore (me always thinking what in the world would I have in common with a 13-year-old boy...but I thought the same thing last year before I picked up Jim Lynch's The Highest Tide, which is narrated by another 13-year-old, and which I also thoroughly enjoyed). Sometimes it is good to read books outside of your comfort zone (for me that would be books written by women and with female protagonists)--you never know what great books you will discover (and some stories are really universal despite who is telling it). Anyway, I will definitely be watching for Kuhlman's next novel.