Ellis Mazer is a soon-to-be father, a first year English teacher, and a directionless twenty-something entering the directionless 2000-somethings. Violence provided by the backdrop of 9/11 feeds Mr. Mazer's seventh graders the essay fodder that almost makes his job bearable. Then, when a little girl disappears from her rural Arkansas mobile home, teaching writing turns into a layup drill. But when Spencer—effeminate trailer trash with more ring worms than friends—stops coming to school, Ellis discovers that he may be the only person who even notices.
The resulting quest leads Ellis deep into hillbilly noir in an attempt to verify that there is still some good in what appears to be a crumbling world. And the mystery of a missing thirteen-year-old must be solved somewhere between the fears of inescapable evil and inevitable tedium.
Ellis is pitted against a preacher’s son whose sociopathic tendencies have seeped into the fabric of small-town life, and he is partnered with The Drew—full-time assistant principal, part-time private detective—who wears both his old coach’s whistle and his monotonous family life like veritable Albatrosses.
Among the swirling depravity of society, the crippling panic of impending parenthood, and the mounting scrap heap of seventh grade essays, one Arkansas town sees two kids go missing. Ellis Mazer only wants to find one of them. And if he can pull that off, he might not ever become a good teacher, but he might at least become a good person.
The resulting quest leads Ellis deep into hillbilly noir in an attempt to verify that there is still some good in what appears to be a crumbling world. And the mystery of a missing thirteen-year-old must be solved somewhere between the fears of inescapable evil and inevitable tedium.
Ellis is pitted against a preacher’s son whose sociopathic tendencies have seeped into the fabric of small-town life, and he is partnered with The Drew—full-time assistant principal, part-time private detective—who wears both his old coach’s whistle and his monotonous family life like veritable Albatrosses.
Among the swirling depravity of society, the crippling panic of impending parenthood, and the mounting scrap heap of seventh grade essays, one Arkansas town sees two kids go missing. Ellis Mazer only wants to find one of them. And if he can pull that off, he might not ever become a good teacher, but he might at least become a good person.