As If We Were Prey

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 25 JAN 2010

Delp (The Last Good Water) finds dark inspiration for these loose stories in the complicated transformations of boys to men. In Commandoes, set in a post-WWII American suburb, some neighborhood boys teach a lesson to the meanest kid on the block, neighborhood terror Daryl Hannenberg, whose stepdad was hauled off to prison and who has a Hitler poster in his room. Delp obliquely implies Daryl s anger has a lot to do with the expectations society heaps on boys. Subsequent tales explore these assumptions, such as a bloody-minded sense of honor assumed by a sixth-grade boy in The Trees Growing Up Around Us, who repeatedly takes beatings by his more practiced boxing partner. Delp s boys and adolescents grow into overweight, hard-drinking middle-aged men, such as Inky Sewell in We Are Living in the Future, a star high school football player turned unemployed, self-pitying beer guzzler. Delp is very at home in places where there s little hope amid the self-perpetuating ordeals of failure and defeat. It s not for everyone, but readers who cut their teeth on Jesus Son will want to take a look.