An impressive debut tells of a Midwestern father on the brink of destitution and his grim efforts to survive.
Two narratives alternate: One follows Henry and his son, Junior, hour by hour on the 8-year-old’s birthday and into the following day, when the father has a crucial job interview. They live out of a pickup, and their money seesaws on day labor and the barest necessities. The chapter titles reflect how much cash they have, opening with “$89.34,” which is followed by “$89.59” because Henry finds a quarter on a McDonald’s men’s room floor. Their hoard will plunge to “$17.41” when Henry treats them to a hotel room and bath ahead of the interview; the stay ends abruptly after Henry fights with another guest. The other storyline reveals how things got so bad. Henry’s father must turn from teaching to blue-collar work after he hits a student. Henry falls in with a drug dealer, meets Junior’s mother, Michelle, in rehab at 16, scores on a big oxy sale (chapter “$50,000”), gets nabbed, and serves five years. Then another act of violence, echoing his father’s, ends Henry’s messy post-jail life with Michelle in a singlewide and forces him and Junior into the pickup for six months before a final horrific episode amid the abundance of a Walmart. The novel’s structure works well to track the legacy and persistence of bad choices and how they whittle down options in lives that didn’t have many to start with. Guanzon tends to overwrite, but he can be eloquent regarding Henry’s hard, hungry struggle: “His belt is too battered to wear to the interview, sweat-muddled and pocked with a row of holes driven through with masonry nails. A rough tally of every five pounds shed.”
An imperfect but compelling picture of poverty, desperation, and pain.