It's an intergenerational tale of the talented protege who importunes, irritates, and ingratiates the unwilling mentor. It's a coming-of-age story of not fitting in, not wanting to fit in, finding something you're good at, and giving it everything you've got. Which the author does, though not as deftly as in her later, mature works, and which the characters do, especially Max, the old circus acrobat, and Alison, the precocious middle-school fiction writer, as funny and exasperating a pair as you'll find this side of Huck and Jim.
High in blissful escape from his loving home, he juggled soda bottles left by teen-aged neckers; when he dropped them they bounced neatly on the sun-baked tar....His father was another warning example: a faded man, thankful for small decencies like the roof over his head, he had never dared expect life to yield much joy, and so never exerted himself to procure any. Max had no intention of aging and dying before his time. Spoiled by books and dreams and sky-gazing, he wanted transcendence. The roof was his jumping-off point....He knew he was Urban Jew at play like Tarzan; but defying the social odds, he stayed up there half a life. Now there was no escaping. (p. 51)
Alison has some laugh-out-loud introspective moments that are worth the price of admission. She latches onto Max because her parents, teachers, and erstwhile friends are either boring or gross or both. She reads like crazy, flaunts her depth of understanding, evades her captors clumsily, and pours her creative energy into Alice, the fantasy heroine of her journal. Clearly she will grow up to be the successful author of several well-received novels - if she can survive puberty.
On the other hand, Max has already survived the death or demise of all his friends, and he mainly wants to be left alone to sulk.
He peered down. They were dark-brown leather clogs on cork heels, unadorned except for one braided horizontal strip. "Uh-huh. Simple but elegant," he said.
"They're very comfortable. You don't feel the ground under you."
He gave a short laugh. Time passed.
"Max, are you going to sit in that same position forever?"
"Maybe."
"I'll fix you something to eat. It's nearly seven."
"You do that. I wouldn't want to die of malnutrition, with so many more interesting choices available." (p. 173)
This and his acute somatic sensitivity to what works and what doesn't make him a sympathetic old coot I wouldn't mind having a drink with. I give this short, entertaining, well-conceived but ill-wrought novel a B+ and look forward to Schwartz's next one.
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