{"id":2570,"date":"2017-11-14T15:20:00","date_gmt":"2017-11-14T20:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silvercentury.org\/2017\/11\/being-with-henry\/"},"modified":"2017-11-14T15:20:00","modified_gmt":"2017-11-14T20:20:00","slug":"being-with-henry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2017\/11\/being-with-henry\/","title":{"rendered":"Being with Henry"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Martha Brooks – DK, 2000<\/em> <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sixteen-year-old Laker has grown up with his emotionally fragile mother, Audrey, whose new husband gives her a hard time. When Laker loses his temper and knocks his stepfather to the floor, Audrey throws Laker out. He catches the first bus out of town and lives on the street until an 83-year-old widower named Henry offers him room and board in exchange for yard work.<\/p>\n

Henry is a bit forgetful, no longer drives and counts his change very slowly in the store, but he\u2019s still on the ball. His arthritis doesn\u2019t prevent him from tearing down a shed. He treats Laker with respect and generosity. Without prying, he encourages Laker to contact Audrey and to enroll in the local high school. Later, he\u2019s quite believably capable of romance even though he still misses and loves his dead wife.
\n 
\nHenry\u2019s daughter, Vera Lynne, cleans his house uninvited and throws out stuff he would rather keep. Her exaggerated sense of responsibility for him weighs her down, and she fiercely insists that his care should be a family matter (none of Laker\u2019s business), or that Henry should go to a \u201chome\u201d even though he doesn\u2019t need to yet. Henry finds her presence oppressive and prefers Laker as a companion and driver. At first, Vera Lynne\u2019s teenage daughter, Charlene, hates Laker as an interloper, but she gradually sheds her mother\u2019s influence and becomes attracted to him.
\n 
\nThen there\u2019s the mysterious figure in Laker\u2019s dreamlike journal entries: a brown-skinned, laughing old woman who took him swimming and berry picking when he was a toddler. Are these dreams or memories? Laker finds out and learns some devastating secrets about his family history.
\n 
\nLike real life, this thoughtful novel leaves many questions unresolved. Henry seems fatalistic about his own declining health, but Laker dreads having to leave him; he has nowhere else to go. Still, most of the characters change in positive directions. Henry plays a crucial role in Laker\u2019s breaking free from a family pattern of violence, just as Laker helps Henry hold on to his independence, dignity and freedom of spirit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sixteen-year-old Laker has grown up with his emotionally fragile mother, Audrey, whose new husband gives her a hard time.<\/p>\n

Read more Being with Henry<\/span> ›<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

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