[In "Rumble Fish"] Rusty-James longs to live up to the reputation of his older brother, referred to only as the Motorcycle Boy. Rusty-James is on a macho trip at his junior high school, where he wants to be the toughest cat around since his brother was expelled. Rusty's father drinks, his mother has disappeared, his best friend is decent enough but too weak to exert any influence. When the Motorcycle Boy comes back to town, Rusty follows his idol one step too far. The fall is shattering for them both.
"Rumble Fish" … makes its bleak points tellingly enough, despite a curiously remote quality. Much of the latter, I think, stems from that Motorcycle Boy, who clanks through the story like a symbol never quite made flesh.
Robert Berkvist, in a review of "Rumble Fish," in The New York Times Book Review, December 14, 1975, p. 8.
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