Dirt Road Home, the companion to Watt Key’s Alabama Moon centers on Hal Mitchell, the Moon’s friend fromthe Pinson Boys’ Home, and Hal’s time in the hard-core Hellenweiler Boys’ Home in Tuscaloosa.
14 year-old Hal’s one goal is to stay out of trouble so he can qualify for early release once his father is able to sober up and hold down a job. But on the first day in Hellenweiler, Hal learns that the boys are clearly divided into 2 rival gangs, The Ministers and The Hounds, and no one can exist without joining up. Hal is determined to stay out of the system, and his stoic non-commitance catches the eye, and eventually the respect, of Paco, the thoughtful, calculating leader of the Hounds. It also earns him the unbridled hatred of Jack, the hot-tempered leader of the Ministers who will stop at nothing to punish Hal for his insolence. But there’s more going on at Hellenweiler than just a rivalry between the gangs: Hal soon discovers a system of abuse perpetuated by the administrators and the guards. Hal convinces Paco and Caboose, the lurking, silent young man who seems beyond the reach of the gangs, to help him expose the corruption that’s rampant at Hellenweiler.
The gritty emotional weight of Dirt Road Home is almost too much at times. With authentic characters and a candid first-person narrative, Key’s story offers a disturbing appraisal of life in a juvenile facility where it’s all to easy to see how a corrupt system further corrupts, rather than rehabilitates, troubled youth. No adults at Hellenweiler have any desire to help the boys transition into a productive life; instead they make it a point to bring them down further so that their only option in life will be one of revolving crime and incarceration. I’m unsure if I really believe the happy ending that comes at the end of this book; it seems as though everything is wrapped up too neatly and too quickly. But for realistic teen fiction where you can examine the way kids are treated, how they act, and what they think when they’re in this situation (the hopelessness, anger, frustration, fear, and power struggles), Dirt Road Home is a solid addition to the genre.
- Posted by Cori