Davis’ novel is a cautionary tale that captures the essence of what it means to come of age.
Willie Davis
Novel | 286 Pages | 5.5” x 8.5” | Reviewed: PDF ARC
978–0998409283| First Edition | $15.99
7.13 Books | Brooklyn | BUY HERE
The world is not an easy place, especially for a teenager coming of age. As much as it should be otherwise, circumstances such as family dynamics, money, and location play a major part in shaping our lives and dictating the path we go down. Despite these confines, however, we still hold the power to decide what kind of people we want to be.
Enter Milo Byers, a mixed-race 17-year-old living in Kentucky. Having dropped out of high school, he splits his time between two main places. On one side, he has The Rabbit, a hole-in-the-wall bar run by Egan, an unscrupulous business man who runs his bar and his “secret” car theft ring with an iron fist, alongside his questionable business associates. On the other side, Milo has a house in Prospect Hill owned by Thomas, a somewhat strange man hounded by mysterious rumors about inappropriate behavior, where drugs run rampant and teens come and go as they please. These two main people in his life, Egan and Thomas, have a longstanding hatred of one another, which puts Milo right in the middle of a rivalry always teetering on the edge of violence.
His home life doesn’t offer much respite. There, he must face the reality of an ailing mother who doesn’t recognize who he is most of the time and wondering if her next “episode” is the one that will kill her. Home is supposed to be a middle ground for Milo, but it only ends up being another obstacle to face. Without a place to escape the warring factions in his life, he tends to barricade himself from the world and tries to make connections with friends in equally difficult situations, like Roxy Leckett, the drug-dealing Christian living down the road from Thomas’ party house.
“If I push back against the rest of the world, against the endless nightmare, then I could hold onto our sadness, our injuries, everything that makes us part of one another.”
His only source of comfort comes from the idea of Aaron, his brother who ran away from home 10 years before. He hero worships his missing brother because he needs something to hold on to, and Aaron isn’t there to dispute any of Milo’s fantasies.
“Everything else, you say the obvious like you’re making a point, but when it comes to Aaron, you think maybe the world isn’t exactly what it seems.”
Milo can’t, or won’t, let go of the idea of Aaron being something more. He goes so far as to theorize that Aaron is the mysterious vigilante graffiti tagger, Nightwolf. This gives him something to hope for and something to aspire to. In an incident where his poor decisions lead to endangering a baby, he claims to be Nightwolf himself in order to “save” it. This sparks his need to save a young boy, Otto, when an alleged incident threatens to send his life out of control, an impulse that stays with Milo as he becomes an adult.
Davis captures the essence of what it means to come of age. Circumstances may not be the same as Milo’s, but everyone has had to make decisions that impact how his own life turns out. Milo’s story can come across as a cautionary tale or as an instruction manual, depending on which lens he is seen through. The first part of the book deals with the decisions he makes as a 17-year-old, but the second part fast-forwards six years to show what his adult life turned out like. The good and the bad all stem from choices that were made by him, not by the hand he was dealt in life, and Milo’s is a journey that most people can ultimately understand and sympathize with.
