HOW THE PHARAOHS RISE

In this debut novelistic memoir, fear shapes the life of a young boy, who witnesses three deaths up close.

Olis writes this autobiographical, coming-of-age story from the perspective of college professor Art Robson. In the 1970s and ’80s, he watches his young neighbor Tom, whom Art usually calls “the boy,” grow up in Oak Park, Illinois, near Chicago. Tom endures a troubled childhood. Doctors diagnose him with diabetes at age 5, and he is an alcoholic when barely a teen. Chaos reigns within and around him as well, as a variety of fears drive many people. For example, Tom, who’s White, sees some in his community level racism against African Americans. But three traumatic experiences most affect the boy. The first is an older man Tom and others find dying in a car on a snowy New Year’s Eve. Years later, he watches two people lose their lives mere months apart. One is a victim of a horrible road accident, the other a murdered woman. The homicide, in particular, which cops deem a sexual assault, causes the boy to “shut down on many fronts”—a burden that takes decades to overcome. Despite someone else narrating this absorbing book, there’s a large amount of insight into Tom. The perpetually scared boy suffers through ordeals that seemingly validate his fears. In one case, Tom, when only 10, is lost amid teens at a Halloween party and frantically searches for the older brother who brought him. Tom’s sad adolescence is an “illusion of innocence,” as he becomes increasingly detached and distrustful. Olis fills the pages with vivid details of Oak Park, from the “rickety raucousness” of passing L trains to the ethereal designs of the town’s Roman Catholic churches. But his metaphors and allegories are sometimes too conspicuous; he explicitly notes symbolism rather than let certain images or gestures speak for themselves.

A profound, engrossing story of a tormented childhood.