by Brady Udall
First published 2002
Seven-year-old Edgar Mint plays near his home on an Arizona Indian reservation when a mail carrier's jeep strikes him down. Half Apache and effectively orphaned, Edgar barely survives the collision that reshapes his entire existence. The accident sends him from a hospital bed to a reform school filled with troubled youth, then into the care of a Mormon family who takes him in. Each new environment brings fresh challenges as Edgar navigates a world that seems determined to knock him down again. His mixed heritage and traumatic injury mark him as different wherever he lands. Yet Edgar possesses an inner strength that carries him through one bewildering situation after another. Comedy mingles with genuine hardship as this resilient boy encounters characters and circumstances that test his courage. Edgar tells his own story with the honesty of someone who has learned early that life delivers both cruelty and unexpected kindness in equal measure.
Genres: literary-fiction, coming-of-age, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, resilient-protagonist
Setting: Arizona, Indian Reservation
Period: 20th-century
379 pages · Hardcover · RBA Libros
Content warnings: child-death, medical-trauma