The story of a boy and his dad. Ned's dad Sam is unreliable. At one point he was gone for years. He drinks too much and gambles too much and chases women. He can't keep a job. He is jealous and refuses to give Ned's mom, Jenny, a divorce.
But when Jenny ends up in a mental hospital, Ned ends up with Sam, who is an indifferent parent at best. From his dad, Ned learns all about drinking, gambling and shady business.
Jenny eventually is well enough to return home and continue raising her son. Life becomes more predictable but certainly less exciting for Ned once Sam is no longer in charge of him. Though he wasn't well cared for under his father's wings, it certainly was an education in the ways of the world. And Ned becomes quite familiar with some of the more "colorful" characters that inhabit his father's world.
This was a engaging story of a boy learning to understand his errant father and his troubled mother. And of learning how to avoid the missteps that blighted his father's life in so many ways. Good read. And not without its humorous moments:
It was a rare night that did not generate at least one fight in the pool room, and while most of the combatants were either too drunk or too inept to hurt each other much, bystanders were sometimes mangled hideously. My father said if it was just him, he'd let me stay and shoot to my heart's content, but there was one thing he never wanted to do, and that was report to my mother that I'd been killed in the pool hall.
Review by Publishers Weekly.
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