Aristotle (Ari) Mendoza

Ari is the novel’s central character, its protagonist and narrator. As the story begins, he is fifteen years old; a loner, as much by choice as by temperament; and he has a tendency towards a sort of defensive violence that he deploys when he’s being bullied or patronized. He also has a mostly silent, complicated relationship with his war-veteran father, a loving, bantering relationship with his mother, and distant relationships with his siblings: a pair of twin sisters who are twelve years older, and a brother in prison for a crime about which Ari knows nothing.

There is the sense, at the beginning of the narrative, that another part of the reason Ari is a loner and has, as he says, no friends, is a slow-simmering anger – at his parents, for keeping him uninformed about his brother and also for trying to control his...