The setting of this debut novel is Manhattan's Lower East Side in the late '80s--that pivotal time just before gentrification, when derelict buildings were occupied by drug dealers, immigrants and runaways. Every character in this tale is somehow flawed, but we keep pulling for them, hoping that they will sort themselves out, instead of endlessly chasing whatever a drug or cult experience has promised.
Jude Keffy-Horn is the unlikely hero/protagonist who, despite a possible diagnosis of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and indifferent parenting, might just emerge a whole person. Living in Vermont, he and his best friend, Teddy, are druggie adolescents. They come by it honestly. Jude's father, Les, is a drug dealer in New York, and his mother, with whom he lives, makes her living as a glass blower, primarily bongs. These hippie prototypes adopted Jude and then had their own daughter, Prudence. Teddy's father, an East Indian, left a long time ago and his mother splits just as the story opens.
Jude and Teddy smoke pot, huff and do whatever it takes to maintain a constant high. On Jude's 16th birthday, they hook up with Eliza, who is the daughter of Les's new girlfriend. Eliza comes to Vermont to meet Jude and Prudence because Les "is the best thing that ever happened" to her mother. Before she boards the train back to New York a mere six hours later, Teddy is dead from cocaine that she gave him and she is pregnant by him.
Enter Johnny, Teddy's 18-year-old half-brother--he marries Eliza so that he can raise Teddy's child because he loved him so much, even though he hadn't seen him for months. The problem is that Johnny is in the closet, except for his boyfriend Rooster, who evidently doesn't count since Johnny and Rooster, and very soon Jude and Eliza, are all members of "straight-edge," a cult movement that eschews meat, sex and drugs. What they are really about is hardcore punk.
Jude and Eliza join Johnny in New York, as do a few of Jude's friends. They form a band, of course, and go on tour. How this all happens is mysterious, even to the author. It just does. Then, the story goes south. Johnny decides to find Teddy's father--a momentary plot point that's moved quickly off the page. There is endless backing and forthing between Vermont and Manhattan, while Jude tries to dodge a guy whose stash he stole. There is violence, punk rock--but no drugs and no meat. The sex thing is a different story.
Henderson has certainly captured the dynamic of a generation of kids trying to overcome the legacy of whacked-out parents, terminal permissiveness and no rudder. Some of them are actually likable.--Valerie Ryan
Shelf Talker: Evoking the East Village scene in the 1980s, this debut novel captures the coming-of-age experience. Following the death of a teenage boy, three mourners try to make their way in the world, with precious little help from the adults in their lives.