Product Description

The story of a homeless youth living on the edge of society. His life is dramatically changed by an exiled Rastafarian, with whom he undertakes a journey of self-discovery, from the towns and malls of Middle America to the ganja-growing mountains of Jamaica.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53336 in Books
• Published on: 1996-05-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Publishers Weekly
A change in setting halfway through this ambitious novel by the respected author of Continental Drift and Affliction diminishes its effectiveness to a certain degree. The first half, a starkly realistic, powerful portrait of a troubled adolescent whose life has spiraled out of control, packs a visceral punch. Flunking out of school and already hooked on drugs, the 14-year-old narrator, secretly molested by his stepfather, emotionally abandoned by his weak mother, leaves his mobile home in the depressed upstate New York community of Au Sable and becomes a homeless mall rat. In a burst of bravado, he acquires a crossed bones tattoo, changes his name from Chappie to Bone, and attempts to find some focus in his dead-end existence. Convinced that he is destined for a criminal career, Bone vents his anger in acts of senseless destruction. His vulnerability and his need for love and direction are fused when he and a seven-year-old waif he has rescued from a pedophile take refuge in an abandoned schoolbus with an illegal alien from Jamaica called I-Man, whose Rastafarian wisdom and gentle demeanor are fed by liberal consumption of marijuana, which he deals. It is when Bone follows I-Man to Jamaica that the narrative falters. Though the drug-permeated Jamaican milieu is portrayed with impressive authenticity, the improbability of Bone's macabre adventures there frays the plot's credibility. The novel's strengths-Bone's cool, wisecracking voice and colloquial speech, the details of an adolescent's culture-are diluted by its excesses-too many descriptions of marijuana highs, too many coincidences. Yet one finishes the book with indelible sympathy for tough-guy Bone, touched by his loneliness, fear and desperation, and having absorbed Banks's message: that (as he said recently), society's failure to save its children is "the main unrecognized tragedy of our time." 100,000 first printing; $15,000 ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
YA?Banks is that rarest of beasts, a writer with daring, skill, and heart. His latest book is equally rare?an adult novel about 14-year-old Bone, told from his perspective with corresponding jargon and without ridicule. From the first page, YAs will be captivated?"Anyhow, my life got interesting you might say the summer I turned fourteen and was heavy into weed but I didn't have any money to buy it with so I started looking around the house all the time for things I could sell but there wasn't much." The boy has a disturbed stepfather, a long-suffering mother, and a long-gone father. The first half of the book chronicles his willing but innocent drift into criminality. His life takes a turn for the better when he moves into an abandoned school bus with a Jamaican mystic. He travels to Jamaica with "I-man," and there he finds his self-centered druggie father, turns 15, is sexually initiated, and loses I-man in a violent drug deal. The remarkable narration immerses readers in Bone's self-contained world. The plentiful dialogue is rendered without quotation marks, a quirk that contributes to the almost claustrophobic feeling of being inside the teen's head. Yet, the power of being there is that when Bone begins to mature and break out of his world, so do readers. This novel is raw and moving. Buy it.?Chip Barnett, Rockbridge Regional Library, Lexington, VA
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Banks (Continental Drift, LJ 4/15/85) has found a new voice in this tale about a homeless youth on the edge of society.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A GREAT COMING OF AGE NOVEL
I teach high school English, mostly American lit, and without having read this book myself I recommended it to one of my sophomore students for a free-reading unit we were doing. He read it in three days and loved it. I quickly finished the book I had chosen (A STAR CALLED HENRY) and picked up his copy of RULE. I had never read Banks, except for a few short stories here and there, but now I am a complete convert (so much so, in fact, that I'm reading CLOUDSPLITTER now, which makes RULE seem like an even better book than i first thought). i noticed that one reviewer wrote that Banks had gotten the voice of the narrator all wrong. That reader apparently does not spend the majority of his waking hours with teenagers. I do. And let me say that the narration is dead on in every respect. So often critics claim to have discovered the next CATCHER IN THE RYE or the heir to HUCKLEBERRY FINN and never before have I agreed until now. RULE OF THE BONE is a beautiful novel with something real at stake, perhaps something more real than Holden Caufield's three-day ramble (and certainly more engaging). Bone's journey to himself (his "I-self") is visceral and funny and sad and moving. I plan to teach it next year in my modern novel course.

Mindtwister
Rule of the Bone might just be one of the most entertaining books you might read. The story of Chappie "Bone" takes so many twists and turns; and just when you think you know the flow of the story, you're thrown back by weird characters, or situations that you never thought would occur. You'll be at the edge of your seat, staying up late nights while reading this book. You'll go on a journey with a 14 year old, who goes through TONS of obstacles that a kid that age would never normally EVER experience.

Typical Banks
Saying Rule of the Bone is typical Banks is a good thing. He writes compelling stories with an edge that never lets you feel too comfortable or become too close to the characters since they're generally such sad human beings. My wife says he's smug, I say he's a realist. However, compared to other Banks novels, Bone is a joyride. Plenty or lighter moments and a protagonist who's spunk makes him worth cheering for if not quasi-likeable. While not a fast read, it's quite literal and moves along as quickly as the locales of the story change. Again, Banks explores familial relationships and how they're affected by societal conditions. Perhaps the only thing keeping this book from getting five stars from me is the knowledge that Continental Drift and the Sweet Hereafter exist. Every time I read a Banks book, besides Cloudsplitter, I wonder why he isn't a more popular writer with the status quo. He's a great writer and this is a good book.