The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys by Chris Fuhrman
Francis Doyle is a 13-year-old with a hernia who lives in Savannah, Georgia and goes to a Catholic junior high school. He is an altar boy. His life is dangerous. This is a fictional memoir telling the tales of Doyle and his gang. Beaten by his father, pulling pranks in school, falling in love, shoplifting, fighting, sex, comic books, drinking, race trouble, skipping school, angst, and on and on.
Parts are quite funny, parts are quite sad. I found Fuhrman’s style a bit hard to read. It’s jerky and doesn’t flow all that well. I also felt there could be more to this book. I didn’t get as close to the characters as I thought might be possible. The shocker towards then end was less shocking because of that. It’s less than it could be, but it’s a good read with a cool book cover.
It may not have been the final version as the author, Chris Fuhrman, lost a battle with cancer in 1991 at age 31, while trying to finish the book.
August 30th, 2006 at 10:59 am
I see that a movie has been made of this book. [netflix] [IMDb]. From the preview, I see they’ve changed some basic things in the book, but it remains to be seen which version is better, since the book really doesn’t feel like it was finished.
August 30th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
I know I’ve seen the movie, but in all honesty, I can’t remember a single thing that happened in it. I just know it had a Culkin.
Must have been good though, as I gave it three stars… *shrug*
August 30th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
The book had a sort of John Irving ending. I’m not a big fan of his, either written or filmed.
It had Jodie Foster too.