The Violent Child

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY AUG 27, 2001

In Sheridan's gritty debut, English teacher and recovering alcoholic Teddie Durban spends time reminiscing about his less-than-idyllic childhood with his mother, Lorraine. She is close to death, ravaged by poverty, innumerable cigarettes and the harsh conditions of the steel mill where she worked. Once tough as nails, she has been reduced to "holding a cigarette and bourbon in one hand so she may push her oxygen about the apartment with the other." While Teddie was growing up, Lorraine was only slightly more stable than his father, Ted, a negligent drunk who steals the few scenes in which he appears. In one, the father secretly drags Teddie to a bar so he can carouse with his revolting mistress; in another, Teddie looks on as Lorraine sews up wounds Ted suffered in a brawl. Lorraine is a fascinating creation albeit in the way a train wreck is fascinating but too much time is spent on her, to the detriment of the supporting characters. Teddie survives his turbulent upbringing through the intervention of his paternal grandparents, Marge and Leo, but they are mostly at the periphery until the novel's end. Even less attention is devoted to Trudy, a lesbian who works at the steel mill with Lorraine and becomes her fierce protector and, eventually, her lover. Their improbable relationship could have been the foundation of a whole novel, but Sheridan barely addresses it. Both the misleading title Teddie only gets into a couple of scraps and the ugly cover art would be better suited to a straight-to-video horror flick. Although Sheridan endeavors to provide an unflinching portrayal of life among the working poor, the result feels more like an extended episode of Jerry Springer.