Boy’s Life

McCammon, Robert. Boy’s Life. New York: Pocket Star, 1991.

I would almost venture to say there is almost too much adventure in this book. More stuff happens to CoreyMackenson in his life, in his boyhood life, than I can begin to explain. There is magic and imagination on nearly every page. Corey is an all-around good kid but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his share of trouble at school, confrontations with bullies and disagreements with his parents. All normal stuff until you add the mystery of a dead man, the mob, a dog that won’t die, a eye-blinking bike, a run-in with Nazis, kidnapping, a prostitute, the klu klux klan, several monsters and more mayhem. 

I love a book that has almost every page flagged for a good line; a line I wish I had written, or one that made me think. Here are a few of my favorite lines from early in Boy’s Life:
“You realize that every person in the world is a compromise of nature” (p 9).
“Maybe crazy is what they call anyone who’s got magic inside them after they’re no longer a child” (p 10).
“Oh, I knew what the word meant and all, but its casual use from a pretty mouth shocked the fool out of me” (p 20).
“There are horrors that burst the bounds of screen and page, and come home all twisted up and grinning behind the face of somebody you love” (p 50).
“I had never seen a black Jesus before, and this sight both knocked me for a loop and opened up a space in my mind that I’d never known needed light” (p 120).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust and the section on Alabama in “Southern Fried Fiction” (p 207).