The Ordinary White Boy
Brock Clarke
book reviews:
· general fiction
· chick lit/romance
· sci-fi/fantasy
· graphic novels
· nonfiction
· audio books

Click here for the curledup.com RSS Feed

· author interviews
· children's books @
   curledupkids.com
· DVD reviews @
   curledupdvd.com

newsletter
win books
buy online
links

home

for authors
& publishers


for reviewers

click here to learn more




Buy *The Ordinary White Boy* online

The Ordinary White Boy

Brock Clarke
Harvest Books
Paperback
272 pages
September 2002
rated 3 1/2 of 5 possible stars
previous reviewnext review

The adage that those who can't, teach, is here set on its head. Brock Clarke, an assistant professor of creative writing, has assembled the components of a remarkable book about a spectacularly unremarkable young boy. Lamar Kerry, Jr., is a twenty-seven-year-old citizen of a small town, the son of a small town paper editor, and someone with no real plans for the future, no real tools to deal with them even if he did have them, and someone who, during the spell of this book, will come to understand these shortcomings and learn to accept them.

This is a sort of post-coming-of-age odyssey; nearly thirty, our lead character is a little old for self-discovery, but after taking off on a road trip with close friend Andrew to escape the mundane arc of his daily life, he returns to confront the vista of his own unextraordinary existence.

In the end, ordinary becomes something special. Lamar gets engaged, finds previously hidden special qualities in his father, and realizes that no one in the world wants to think he's ordinary. And coming to grips with this scares him speechless. So, he pretends not to be scared, acts as if everything is okay, because, as the novel's closing line says, "After all, this is what us ordinary white boys are supposed to do. Is it not?"



Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com. © Steven Rosen, 2005

Other books by Brock Clarke:

buy *The Ordinary White Boy* online
click here for more info
Click here to learn more about this month's sponsor!


fiction · sf/f · comic books · nonfiction · audio
newsletter · free book contest · buy books online
review index · links · · authors & publishers
reviewers

site by ELBO Computing Resources, Inc.