By Isabella Purdy
With graphic novels on the rise, author David Small brings a new novel to the scene that is incredible. This novel manages to cover the classic coming of age story in a whole new way.
13-year-old Russell Pruitt was abandoned by his mother and now lives with his drunken father. They move to California in search of work and the Dad winds up finding a place in San Francisco.
Pruitt struggles to make new friends at his school with bullies galore; but he learns the art of being invisible. His next door neighbors, the Mahs, are really the only people that are nice to him as Pruitt’s home life gets more and more toxic. He winds up becoming friends with two boys, but they are cruel and toxic and call Pruitt “queer”. They bully another kid that Pruitt used to be friends with and make Pruitt feel even more lonely.
To make matters worse, one night, Pruitt’s father leaves and never comes back. Stuck in denial, Pruitt stays in the house with the unopened bills, numb to everything around him.
Pruitt eventually turns to the Mahs for help, who gratefully take him in with open arms, but Pruitt runs away numerous times and steals before truly accepting their love.
This story set in the 50s is a coming of age story that shows us how difficult it must’ve been to grow up in that time period where homophobia and cruelty towards animals were rampant. Pruitt must deal with name calling and a cruel animal killer on the loose in San Francisco.
With beautifully simplistic drawings, Small gets his points across through both the powerful words and pictures show cased in the graphic memoir. Told to us through the eyes of a confused and badly hurt teenager, this book has a lot to teach us about trust and second chances.
