Shadow Man

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Grant spins a Rashomon-like story with a drunk-driving fatality at its core. Chapters are narrated by diverse inhabitants of a seacoast California town where popular Gabriel, 18, is found dead one night: after he left a party alone and inebriated, he crashed his truck into a tree. Jennie Harding, Gabriel's girlfriend, resented his alcoholism and infidelity, but adored him. Only Gabriel knew she is five months pregnant and that they had quarreled two nights earlier. On the morning Jennie learns of his death, she runs to their secret beachfront spot, contemplating suicide. Reading their daughter's diary for clues to her whereabouts, the Hardings learn of her condition and take steps that ultimately save her life. Grant's dark novel, while affecting, becomes melodramatic: Jennie's attempted martyrdom is extreme, while Gabriel's father Frank, who battered his wife and sons, seems an unlikely hero. Yet the cautionary tale may inspire readers' reflections on life, death and the need to act intelligently. Ages 12-up. (Oct.)

School Library Journal

Gr 7-10-- From its dark, inappropriately menacing cover to its cast of dysfunctional, emotionally crippled voices (one can hardly call them characters), Grant's disappointing novel describes the aftershocks of the sudden, violent death of a teenager. Gabe McCloud, a high school drop-out alcoholic from an abusive family, drives his truck at high speed into a tree after a night of heavy drinking. Jennie, Gabe's pregnant girlfriend, runs off to their special place where she can think about him and their troubled relationship, and contemplate her own suicide. Her musings, the reflections of family and friends, and entries from Gabe's nearly illiterate journal put forth the bleak landscape of his life. Readers are left with two unrelenting questions: how did this boy survive for 18 years, and what is the point? If Grant is trying to create an abysmal, hopeless scenario so other teens will be grateful for their own paltry miseries, then she has succeeded. While she tries for a not-so-subtle upswing at the end, it's just one more element that doesn't work. Even those who seek out this kind of tearjerker will be disappointed by the lack of substance here. In Peck's Remembering the Good Times (Delacorte, 1985) and Irwin's So Long at the Fair (McElderry, 1988), richly crafted language, humor, and believable relationships bring to life those who commit suicide. Those elements are missing in this title. --Alice Casey Smith, Chappaqua Library, NY

Gary Young

Gabe McCloud, 18, is killed when his pickup strikes a tree. He is a well-liked person in town, despite his status as a high school drop-out and member of a dysfunctional family; he is also, unknown to all but his girlfriend, the father of the baby she is carrying. The news of his death sets off an array of interior monologues in those closest to him. By the end of this realistic and lyrical novel, a composite portrait of Gabriel McCloud, which is enhanced by entries from Gabe's own class assignment journal entries, gives the reader a deep sense of the character. The variety of alternating first-person voices may remind readers of Masters' "Spoon River Anthology". The transformation of lives by the death of a boy deprived of success moves the mood from sadness to strength. Grant offers a skillful juxtaposition of characters and their roles. And Gabriel makes a great symbol of fulfillment in the midst of tragedy.