THE BALLAD OF T. RANTULA

by Kit Reed ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 22, 1979

Again Reed ventures into that turbulent corridor between young adolescents and their parents--the young folk consolidating their rebellious powers while the old folk wind up as towers of jello or pits of putrefaction. The adolescent rage here is symbolized in the fabulous ""T. Rantula,"" the fanciful creation of 13-year-old narrator Futch and his pals, Tig and Welles; they're all kids of college teachers in Cambridge, Mass. The imaginary T. Rantula, that ""Eastern mystic and great transvestite singer, in reality your gigantic killer spider,"" specializes in hate-doom ditties (""All we can do now is eat pain and curse/ This must be the end 'cause it can't get any worse"")--and he first gets inside Futch's head when the kid has to cope with his parents' dopey and scary doings. (His weepy Mom has split for a ""creative"" commune to find herself.) But the one who really needs T. Rantula is Tig, who bears a horrible secret: his father is a homosexual who harasses students. So Tig evades his friends and spends all his time pounding around the school's running track, while Futch--and T. Rantula--lay traps to expose Tig's dad, that ""flashy cardboard bastard."" T. Rantula can't work miracles, however, and Tig dies with complications of anorexia; and Futch, grieving, at last brings his parents back to him in a fragile reunion. Although Futch's meditations are a cut too wide in places (he goes on in a high hortatory vein), the jr.-high humor is infectious and the perceptions are both hilarious and caustic. A very special, gritty and grand work of imaginative sensitivity by an incomparable explorer of the generation gap.

Pub Date: May 22, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1979

Categories: FICTION