BACK ROADS by Tawni O'Dell 2000

FIC
O'Dell, T.

This book is strange and not complete successful, in my view. The plot concerns 20-year old Harely, who has been raising his three younger sisters since his mother's incarceration for the murder of his father two years before. He works two jobs, money is tight, and life in general is awful. He loves his sisters, however, and takes seriously his duty to protect them.
He begins an affair with an older woman, the mother of his littlest sister's friend, and that relationship leads to a violent and shocking series of events that reveal the true nature of what has already been described as wildly dysfunctional family.
The story is told in Harely's voice, funny and poetic, and vaguely reminiscent of Holden Caulfield's. It is his voice that makes the book what it is.