NOWHERE SPECIAL

Present needs, future dreams, and training in how to fight draw two small-town middle schoolers together.

“Parents can be…yeah,” says shy, chubby Stan at one point to his more outgoing sparring partner, Elpidia. That’s the main theme Wallace takes up in this outing, which he sets in an impoverished town on the dusty shores of California’s Salton Sea. Stan is tired of being scared of his violently abusive dad. Elpidia is being brutally beaten down by a vengeful paternal Cahuilla cousin from the reservation. She’s been living with her Peruvian maternal grandmother since her parents’ imprisonment following a house fire related to their substance abuse. Elpidia joins Stan, the only white kid in her class, for instruction in the martial art escrima from gentle, reclusive Filipino American army vet Charlie Ramos, whose life has complications of its own. Both young people keep notebooks—Stan for his escapist stories, Elpidia for recipes she intends to dish up in a food truck that will one day take her to see the wide world. The friends dream of a combined bookstore/restaurant and have each other’s backs when crises arise. Elpidia’s abuela is one of several memorable members in a diverse and richly drawn cast, and the tale is shaped as much by cultural conflicts and identity as by the personal qualities, situations, and close bonds of its two main characters.

Heavy going but strongly characterized and hopeful at the end.