Kilgore treats several social issues with great sensitivity. The protagonist, Lee, is the child of parents getting a divorce. Although it disrupts his life, in the sense that he has to move in with his grandmother temporarily, it is not presented as in any way a crucial blow to his adolescent stage of development. Throughout the novel he frequently recalls both parents, never with either malice or indifference, and at the end, he is again with his father, for how long we are not told, nor does it seem to matter. At once sad and matter-of-fact about the situation, Lee is able and determined to move ahead with his own life. Since both parents keep in touch with him, the reader receives no distractingly partial point of view.

The author also sensitively deals with the subject of old age through the character of Lee's grandmother. Her...