Hoppergrass

by Chris Carlton Brown

It is 1969, and Bowser has arrived at The Hill, an institution for delinquent teenage boys. No one is doing much to protect the boys who find themselves there, but Bowser doesn’t expect to stay long. He thinks he might be crazy (and others agree), so he’ll probably be off to the nuthouse soon.

When one of the boys is killed in an accident and it looks like Bowser’s friend Nose is going to be made a scapegoat for the death, it’s up to Bowser, crazy or not, to stand up for the truth.

With language that combines the gritty and the truly graceful, Chris Carlton Brown’s debut novel is heartbreaking and unforgettable.

Genres: Young Adult, Mystery, Crime

240 pages, Hardcover

First published April 14, 2009

Reviews

[Noah]

This young adult book is a very fun and creative way of looking into a young deviants mind. You follow a young boy named bowser and his adventure in a prison like setting where he runs into many friends, but almost an equal amount of foe. This book is also full of emotion and many scenes packed with suspense. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys books like Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer because it follows the same "do what i want" vibe.

[Pendred Noyce · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hoppergrass is a YA novel about a fifteen-year-old boy sent to a southern reform school in the late sixties. Although uneven in its narration, Hoppergrass eventually delivers a strong tale of courage, self-assertion, and redemption.

Bowser is a middle class kid sent to The Hill for reasons we don't learn until the end of the book. With an uncertain sentence before him and worries about whether he is mentally disturbed, Bowser cultivates a reputation for violence and relies on his white gang--kids with names like Snicklesnort, Babyback, and Evan--to watch his back. When he develops an unexpected friendship with a huge black boy named Nose, he keeps it secret, fearing his reputation will take a hit.

Then Evan is killed in an accident and Nose is wrongly accused of manslaughter, set up by the sadistic staff member the boys call Shorty Nub. Bowser, enraged and confused, has to figure out how to save his friend from prison.

This book has its share of flaws. Although Bowser narrates the book, for the first third of it his flat affect and detached style keep the reader at a distance. Even thereafter his motivation and simply what's happening are sometimes unclear. Hoppergrass is populated with too many blank, venal adults to keep track of easily. Among the adults, only the villain Shorty Nub and two rare good adults, Miss Lovitt the librarian and Mr. Woodrow the maintenance man, emerge as full characters.

Still, the kids are well-drawn, and the book addresses a theme I haven't seen in youth fiction before: the tendency to space out and feel confused as a way to duck responsibility when moral decisions get tough. Bowser does it with drugs or daydreaming, and he has to learn to struggle against the temptation: "I decided to make myself as strong and clear as I could and not allow myself to space out into story time."

Author Chris Carlton Brown has taught teens both at a psychiatric center and in special education, and he writes with authority about troubled boys protecting themselves with toughness and swagger. One caution: the authenticity of the story means that this book carries a heavy load of violence, crude sexual references, smoking, drug use, and delinquent behavior. The kids' innocence and hope hides deep under a tough exterior, but it's there, and without sentimentality Hoppergrass shows how it sometimes struggles to emerge.

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

How could I resist a teen book with this blurb from William Gibson(!!!) on the cover: "If Mark Twain had written a murder mystery set in an interracial reform school in Virginia in the late 1960s, Hoppergrass would be it." Despite the blurb & a strong first 100 pages, the book did not fully live up to its promise -- the murder mystery turned a complex & thoughtful depiction of race & power relations in a 1960s juvie hall into a formulaic story line with a pat ending & too many disturbing cliches (white girls & black men needing to be rescued from a sinister evil by the precocious white boy -- in the case the reference to Mark Twain was all too apt). I liked the little stories interspersed throughout the main narrative (indicated by a different font) however -- and the main character's ruminations on the difference between Hill time (how long it takes til you get out of juvie) and story time ("You don't measure story time at all. It's like the time in a dream. Something in story time isn't true because it happened or even could happen. It's true because you wish it had happened, or wish it will happen, or wish it could happen.") A flawed book that is worth reading for its strong characterizations & depictions of male interracial friendship if you are willing to overlook some predictable plot turns. 2.5 stars.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Richard aka Bowser is doing time at the Hill, the juvenile detention center. He struggles with what brought him here and what his future holds. His friends and enemies end up helping him cope with who he is.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book but it has, in my opinion, untapped potential. Even though the story is told from the protagonist's point of view, we still don't really get a good sense of him as a person. Bowser, the main character, is sent to a residential facility for juvenile offenders called the Hill. He mentions that he's the only kid on the Hill from a good family, but never explains how it is that a boy from a good family got involved in drugs. He also mentions that he's likely to be sent to a mental institution, but it's not really clear why anyone thinks he's mentally ill.

That said, it's an interesting premise and there's good suspense and strong relationships between the characters. It takes a little while to get going but if kids are a little patient they should get into it.

[Thomas Grant · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was very riveting. The characters' interactions always kept me going, and each character had something interesting to say. The plot was very interesting and there was always a cliffhanger at the end of each chapter. When I finished the book I really wanted to read the sequel, even though there it isn't one.

[Thorn MotherIssues · Rating 4 out of 5]

Teen reading challenge. Totally unique. I enjoyed it, although I'd have liked it better WITHOUT the big mystery.

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. I thought that it would be another Holes. It wasn't. It wasn't bad, but it just didn't live up to Holes and the names were too convoluted.