Rule of the Bone

Rule of the Bone is the story of a teenage boy who's confused about life. He's got his mohawk, his loser friends, and he's got a couch to sleep on at the den of a local motorcycle gang. A whole lot of things get out of hand - a drug deal gone bad and fatal fire among them - and our boy is sent off wandering the country - and then the world - as he slowly grows up and comes to term with his life. This book is heartbreaking and funny and has such a unique voice. I really enjoyed the slow, convincing character development and the subtle humor. Two thumbs up from this gal.

This books was a serendipitous find. Having picked the book up off the counter of my parents house about 12 years ago (I believe my father was reading it) and reading a page or two, I made a mental note to read the book one day. All I could remember about it was a yellow cover and the word "bone" in the title, so I have been passively looking for the book for over a decade. Then one day while at work (I'm a librarian), it was returned by a patron. And so began my journey with Bone.

Bone's story is that of a lost teenage boy of fourteen who leaves his broken and dysfunctional home after enduring years of abuse at the hands of his Stepfather. He drifts and gets by as well as possible, selling weed to a group of unruly and violent Bikers show more with whom he and his friend crash with in a rundown apartment. As he drifts through his homelessness, spending his days in a mall the next town over, he begins to question what it means to live as a criminal, all the while trying to maintain a sense of right from wrong. As time passes, he finds himself in a position to rescue a young girl around six-years-old who was sold by her mother to a sceevy and dangerous pedophile. The two find refuge in an abondoned bus in the middle a field, inhabited by I-Man, a Jamaican Rastafarian and illegal immigrant homesick for his own country. And so begins the second stage in Bone's journey to himself, which takes him to Jamaica and onward.

This book was incredibly hard to put down, and I found myself reading well past my bedtime. Bone's narrative is authentic and at times soars. His voice was well developed, as were the characters he described. It was an honor to watch Bone evolve from a scared fourteen-year-old boy unsure of himself and the future, into a young man who was ready to embrace his true self and the journey that lies ahead of him. Highly recommended. show less

Rule of the Bone is often described as a modern-day Huck Finn or Catcher in the Rye.

The journey of discovery is told by Bone, a fourteen year old self-described "slacker", who escapes from his abusive stepfather and negligent mother in frigid upstate New York and travels with a rasta dude to Jamaica possibly in search of his real father.

The story was engaging and the settings and the descriptions of upstate New York and Jamaica are incredibly realistic. As is sometimes the case with Banks, more details than I require. I remember being much more engaged with the main character when I read Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye than I did with Bone, but that could be a function of age. My age.

Bone has grown up in a home where he has show more been abused and neglected. Somehow, despite or perhaps because of it, he has tremendous self-awareness despite continuing to make really bad life choices. I found that a little hard to buy.

That’s just a writerly quibble. This is an excellent novel. Highly recommended. show less

I found this book on the side of the road a few years ago and had no idea what to expect - I was more than pleasantly surprised by the originality of the writing, the topic and the character development. Its gritty edge and fast paced action make it a compelling read while immersing the reader in a deeper conversation about self and personal growth.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking to expand their reading list in an unconventional way.

This book moved in directions I didn't think were possible when I started it. It follows the first-person narrative of Bone, a rebellious stoner teenager in a small American town. Bone's story moves through a series of the depressing and predictable situations, as he leaves his mother and sexually abusive stepfather, escapes possible murder by his biker roommates, lives in a schoolbus with two college dropouts (characters from The Sweet Hereafter, I think), to his attempted reconciliation with his mother who rejects him when he asks her to choose between himself and his stepfather.

While this might be the climax of the novel if written by less imaginative authors, Banks takes Bone into more fantastic scenarios, that push the character show more beyond what a reader might think he would be "capable" of. Bone rescues Rose, a little girl he suspects of being held captive by a child pornographer, and returns to the schoolbus to meet I-Man, a Jamaican Rastafarian who is growing pot and vegetables in and around the bus. I-Man and Rose become Bone's new family, and Bone tries to make Rose's life right by finding her mother and sending her back. He then follows I-Man to Jamaica, meeting his father (Doc) by accident, and living the life of the idle rich with Doc and Doc's girlfriend, Evening Star.

But the novel doesn't rest here either; Bone surprises I-Man having sex with Evening Star, and confesses the scene to Doc, who is high on speedballs and swears to kill I-Man. Bone and I-Man flee, returning to I-Man's village and harvesting a crop of pot for smuggling out of Jamaica. When I-Man is shot by drug runners, Bone is spared, being Doc's (white) son; he returns to Evening Star's home, wreaks havoc on Doc, and then flees to serve as part of a private yacht's crew to Dominica.

It's not just the plot that's unpredictable -- it's Bone's own emotional growth that is a surprise. He realizes the importance of love and responsibility, the implications of race, and the reality that trying to do the 'right thing' does not make things right. In many ways, the book is all about accountability; Bone repeatedly comes face to face with the people affected by his actions. His mother, whom he knows loves him intensely, rejects him for her husband, and his father, whom he doesn't know, accepts him without taking parental responsibility for his son. Bone has a series of realizations about race and class privilege, about how we affect one another, and about the unthinking way many people live. There is no great redemption and no justice in this book; but by the end, I had a strong sense of optimism for Bone's future, and felt sure he would continue to learn and be able to find his way towards living a responsible, moral life. show less

I was surprised to find myself liking this book. At first the only reason I thought I would enjoy it was because of the familiarity of the setting in northern New York. It didn’t take long before I was wondering what was going to happen next the main character, how was he going to get out of the trouble he was getting himself into, how was he going to explain some of the things he had done. The book surprised me by taking Bone out of the setting he had grown up in, and sent him down to Jamaica for a reunion with his father. Rule of the Bone is at times a bit too fantastic to be believable, but it does a good job at illustrating the life of a troubled youth as he grows up and has to find a way to live in the world.

"Rule of the Bone" by Russell Banks is for anyone who has ever felt the anguish of being a teenager. In other words, it's for anyone who ever passed through the valley of the shadow of those awkward years between 13 and 19.

Russell Banks has made a living going straight to the heart of characters in his novels, set mainly in upper New York state ("The Sweet Hereafter," "Cloudsplitter," "Affliction"). "Rule of the Bone" cuts right to the bone. Banks, a middle-aged writer, has dared to capture the voice of a modern teenager, Chapman, aka "Chappie," aka "Bone." Bone is a self-proclaimed mall rat, complete with punk mohawk and tattoos who always seems to find himself on the wrong end of the law. Bone is a runner, one step ahead of the law, show more his mother, his dead-end pot-smoking friends, death itself. Bone literally goes through fire and comes out smelling like smoke, but still he's unable to pull himself out of his downward spiral of a life on the streets. Bone is constantly on the move, on a quest to find peace and happiness--two things he thinks his deadbeat dad will give him. When Bone finally catches up with his father in Jamaica, the result is less than satisfying, both for Bone and the reader.

Herein lies part of the book's problem. The first half of the novel--before Bone hooks up with a spliff-smoking Rastafarian named I-Man and they take off for Jamaica--is absolutely riveting. You watch with increasing dread and despair as Bone tries to make a life for himself on the streets. Banks uses no quotation marks; his prose style is intoxicating and dizzying, as if Bone has no time for the delay of punctuation marks. There is an urgency in Bone's narrative voice that will get right under your skin. One particularly gut-wrenching scene has Bone hiding out from security guards in the back corridors of a shopping mall. If those five pages don't break your heart, you've got granite in your veins.

But then, Bone descends into a haze of marijuana and Rastafarian rap as he and I-Man trip on down to Jamaica. I still cared about Bone as his heart was once again broken by his father, but my compassion started to dwindle a little and I found myself getting impatient with Banks. It's like his sharp-focused portrait of an American teenager had suddenly gone soft and blurry.

Still, it's hard to fault Banks for even this because Bone is, without a doubt, one of the best American teens in our nation's literature--right up there with Huck Finn, Holden Caulfield and company. show less