Crutcher, Chris. King of the Mild Frontier: An Ill-Advised Autobiography. New York: Greenwillow Books, 2003.Summary
Chris Crutcher, author of Angry Management, Whale Talk, The Sledding Hill, and the highly challenged book, Deadline, takes readers back to his childhood in rural 1960s Idaho. Crutcher is terrible at sports yet never stops trying to impress girls with his "skills," tries to woo a girl by presenting her with a giant scab, stinks up a bus with Limburger Cheese and mink urine, has perfect church attendance to win a mysterious prize, and is talked into all sorts of pranks and trouble-making by his older, wiser, and more manipulative brother. Add to all his misadventures buck teeth, pride, a propensity for bawling, and a raging temper, and this book is a very honest look at some experiences that are only funny to look back on. It's not until college that Crutcher learns to use his emotions as positive motivators. This inspires him to become a therapist and teen novelist. Throughout the book, Crutcher mentions how characters or situations in his novels are drawn from his own experiences.
Impressions
There were parts of this books where I could not stop laughing. The descriptions about spreading cheese and mink urine all over the senior's fieldtrip bus were priceless! Crutcher is a master of imagery and deadpan humor. Crutcher's style is also semi stream of consciousness, however, and I often found myself confused as to what point in life various stories were taking place or what the story was about. I was also really surprised at the very adult language used. This book uses a lot of profanity, including multiple uses of the f-word, so watch out if you're planning on reading this to youth.
Reviews
Roback, Diane; Brown, Jennifer M.; Bean, Joy; Zaleski, Jeff. Publishers Weekly, 3/3/2003, Vol. 250 Issue 9, p77. Accessed November 3, 2010, from Academic Search Premier database
"In this funny, bittersweet and brutally honest autobiography, Crutcher recounts his journey from a boyhood misspent in remote Cascade, Idaho ("The information highway was a single-lane logging road winding through steep mountains, dead ending at some nameless 'crick' ") to his present life as a writer. The author displays the same impeccable comedic timing that characterizes his young adult novels. Among the many laugh-out-loud episodes he recalls are his older brother's knack for always gaining the upper hand (he talks young Chris into peeing down the heat-register in the living room and convinces him that Jesus had an "older, smarter brother" named "Esus"), plus the author's penchant for "perty girls," which lost him his front teeth when he tried to impress a girl while playing softball. Nothing tops his misadventures in small-town sports ("If you didn't show up for football practice on the first day of your freshman year, they simply came and got you"), including his days as a terrified 123-pound freshman ("with all the muscle definition of a chalk outline") and his initiation as a letterman (involving oysters, an olive and a large dose of humiliation). It is precisely this sense of humility that allows readers to laugh with young Chris, rather than at him. Crutcher can also turn from hilarity to heartache, as when he discusses his mother's alcoholism or his own legendary temper (which plagued hm in his childhood but which he attributes to the compassion he brings to his work as a family therapist). Readers will clasp this hard-to-put-down book to their hearts even as they laugh sympathetically. Ages 13-up."
Carter, Betty. Horn Book Magazine, May/Jun2003, Vol. 79 Issue 3, p368.
Accessed November 3, 2010 from Academic Search Premier database.
"Crutcher, best known for his novels and short stories, has discovered his most effective voice in this collection of episodic, autobiographical essays. Informal essays invite self-revelation, humor, loose structure, and even moralizing; Crutcher responds to all four elements. He writes in an easy, conversational tone, as if he were sitting down swapping stories with his good friend, the reader. He moves back and forth in time, as storytellers do, letting one incident connect to the next thematically rather than chronologically. And what stories he has to tell. There's the time he wants to impress a girl playing baseball and winds up leaving one of his front teeth implanted in the bat. And the time he takes Paula Whitson, the girl of his dreams, to the White Christmas Ball sporting a zit the size of Everest in the middle of his forehead. And even the time Crutcher, full of adolescent cruelty, sponsors the school's most unpopular girl for carnival queen. Crutcher relates direct lessons from his father on relativity and manners, and indirect lessons from his mother on courage. Some of these stories--his own Stotan week, the penis-in-the-popcorn-bag legend--found their way into his novels. But most serve as introductions to his meditations on such subjects as anger or heroism or religion or cruelty, themes that inform all his work. Crutcher concludes that life gives him "a rich pool for stories"; he, in turn, shares that gift with readers. Dive in."
Suggested Library Use
Due to the very mature content (sexuality, death, gratuitous language, etc.), I would not actively promote this book to youth for fear of some serious backlash from parents and teachers. I would, however, include it with a display of Crutcher's other works because it is a funny, poignant book that gives a lot of insight into Crutcher's novels and hope to other kids who might consider themselves losers or outsiders.
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