New York Times Sunday Book Review
By GABRIELLE ZEVIN
Published: August 12, 2007
“ 'The One Where the Kid Nearly Jumps to His Death and Lands in
California,' by Mary Hershey, has a title that works as a pretty nifty
plot summary, too: Alastair, a 13-year-old amputee who calls himself
Stump, spends the summer with his estranged father in California. Five
years before the start of the story, Stump’s leg was amputated
following a premature jump from a ski lift. The mystery here, of
course, is why did he do it? And why does he hate his father so much?
And oh yes, why has his father up and married a double leg amputee? If
you’ve ever read a coming-of-age novel, you can probably imagine how
these stories resolve themselves, and that’s not a criticism so much as
a function of the genre: kid moves from inexperience to experience, kid
achieves personal growth, etc.
There is much to admire, though. For one, there aren’t easy villains.
With Stump’s parents, Hershey takes what appear to be types — the
absentee father, the evil stepmother — and gradually reveals them to be
characters of nuance and satisfying complexity. The author also has a
convincing, lively 'boy' voice and even better, a sense of humor. After
Stump has met and argued with his stepmother for the first time, his
father comments, “I don’t want to see you and Sky get off on the wrong
foot together.” Of course, the joke here is that Stump and Skyla have
only one foot between them..."