Wolf boy : a novel /

Gene and Helen Harrelson sleep in separate bedrooms after a car accident in an ice storm kills their oldest child, Francis, a sophomore at the local University of Illinois, Carbondale, while younger siblings Stephen and Crispy struggle to cope with the loss of their mentor. In this dysfunctional family tale, happiness escapes the characters in a "slow, persistent leak" as Kuhlman wryly dissects seemingly innocent moments, like Stephen's assumption that the stranger on the phone is a telemarketer and not the messenger of his older brother's death. Stephen, more or less at the center of the book, channels his grief into stories for a comic called The Adventures of Wolf Boy, illustrated by his charmingly odd girlfriend, Nicole, and woven beautifully throughout the novel. Wolf Boy lives in Forgotten City and grapples with the death of older brother Johnny Laredo while battling villains and trying to save the world. But while the novel offers inventive twists on the story of a boy trying to save his own world (i.e., his grieving family), Kuhlman can't quite pack everything in, so that the small and subtle opening chapters end up getting inked out. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

When Francis dies, his parents spin apart, his little sister dreams of pop-star romance, and his fianc?e communes with his ghost. Meanwhile, Wolf Boy, his 13-year-old brother, becomes the center of a comic-strip universe he creates with a friend. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A 13-year-old struggles to come to terms with his brother's death in a fiction debut that neatly incorporates elements of the graphic novel. When Francis Harrelson, a college student, dies in a car wreck in southern Illinois in January 1993, his family is understandably heartbroken, with all members retreating into their own worlds. Helen, Francis's mother, becomes increasingly unstable, briefly checking herself into a psychiatric ward; Gene, his father, pursues an affair; Crispy, his ten-year-old sister, ponders running away from home. Stephen, Francis's brother and the book's hero, not only has to manage this turmoil, he also believes that his brother's ghost still haunts him--as does Francis's fiancée, Jasmine. To make sense of it all, he starts channeling his grief and confusion into a comic book he creates with his girlfriend, Nicole, in which Wolf Boy (a stand-in for Stephen) and his family members battle evildoers--like the man driving the truck that hit Francis's car. If the comic-book interludes are metaphorically obvious, they're still a nice touch--they capture the ways in which adolescent boys fantasize, and underscore just how much Stephen has to work through. (The illustrations, moreover, by the brothers Fraim, possess all the energy of a good superhero comic.) The novel is tidily organized to track the year following Francis's death, and that formalism is its greatest weakness. Kuhlman draws careful, exacting portraits of each member of the Harrelson family, spending real time detailing, say, Crispy's growing crush on Marky Mark, or Gene's mistress's wardrobe, which drives Gene wild. But getting those elements right means the narrative itself gets less attention, and though Kuhlman's a fine stylist with an excellent eye and ear, Stephen's concluding revelations about his late brother feel forced and overly melodramatic. A little too pat and familiar, but nicely drawn. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.