Finished Mo 12/26/16
This novel was the December selection for the Contemporary Book Club
When I finished the book I didn't like it as much as after attending the meeting, Wednesday 12/28. I skimmed through the book Wednesday and realized that it was really the story told by an unreliable narrator, and these are the kind of books that I like the best.
Todd Aaron is 55 years old and has been in some kind of institutional care for over forty years. He suffers from autism and high anxiety. He is 'best boy' because he prides himself in following all the rules. 'Mr. B' is his encyclopedia which he reads daily and, 'Mr. C' is a PC which he also uses.
'New Idea'- he decides to walk almost 750 miles back to his childhood home in Grable, NY.
Tommy Doon- his roommate that he doesn't like. This man thinks that Todd is lazy and tries to get out of work. Actually, Doon is the lazy one.
Mike The Apron- Vet of Iraq war who works as an orderly. Possibly a sexual predator and takes advantage of Greta Deane. This 28 year old, high functioning patient commits suicide after a sexual encounter with Mike.
Raykene- Todd's favorite staff person. She treats him with respect.
Martine- female patient that befriends Todd. Her mother and father are rich alcoholics. She has punched her eye out with a rock and has stopped her meds. She gets Todd to stop his Risperdal as well.
Nate- Todd's brother, Beth- his wife, Steve and Cam- their two sons. Nate loves his brother but probably stole money from the sale of their mother and father's condominium. Nate is an 'environmentalist accountant'.
One of the best scenes in the book is when Todd meets his brother's family. Beth leaves Todd with the two boys to make a phone call. The boys run into the street and one of them is hit by a car. Todd continues to eat his french fries with ketchup and is oblivious to the mayhem. He is an unreliable narrator.
In the end of the book, Nate invites Todd to live with his family, but it doesn't work. The marriage disintegrates (you don't get the details because it's all through the eyes of Todd).
When he goes back for the last time, Nate takes them to their old home. Ron Salamon and his wife live there now. Todd goes down into the crawl space and finds a box with photos of him and his mother and a letter in which she tells him how much that she loves him.
Masturbation is encouraged by Todd's mother. She uses the euphemism, 'work'
Todd makes a spear. A stick with a nail at the end. He models it after the tool used in trash pickup, but he uses it to get rid of his aggression. It's kind of a red herring because I really thought that something bad would happen. He'd use it as a weapon. Mike breaks it.
When Todd is on the road he has a visitation from a bird. Very strange. The bird tells him, 'home is in your head'.
He goes back to the home because that's his real home.
Developmental/ BI (Brain Injured)
"Give me volts"
"Autism is now sometimes said to be the largest childhood epidemic in history".
page at amazon-
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Boy-Novel-Eli-Gottlieb/dp/163149192X
author's page at wikipedia-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eli_Gottlieb
First time through, I only felt it was worth a look, but now I really like it and I will recommend it for Janny to read.
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