JUNIOR

Boilard’s literary novel follows a troubled young artist in a tough New England town.

The year is 1985. Junior Beauchamp lives in a rough-and-tumble burg in rural Massachusetts; this is a place where incidents like bar fights are a regular occurrence. Junior lives with his mother Amber Lee and his brother JP. Junior’s father is dead, and Amber Lee turns to sex work to help pay the bills. One day, Junior forces a roofer named Rick James McGee off the roof of their rented home after JP’s friend Tish complains of an episode with McGee. The roofer, who is “a true scumbag, a serial pedophile,” falls to his death. Junior hides the evidence well, but his deed could easily catch up with him. Luckily for him, there are plenty of other crimes going on around town, such as the local pharmacist engaging in illicit activities like pushing unprescribed pills. Junior is not just some local hooligan—underneath his tough exterior he is a talented artist who might just make it to art school one day—but his life only grows more complicated when Amber Lee goes missing, leaving her sons to fend for themselves in this place where hostility is the norm. Boilard effectively transports readers to this setting where townies seem willing to fight over just about anything, though the roughness can be laid on a little thick at times; when people have names like “Texas Two Step” and they frequent places like the “Bloody Brook Bar,” they seem destined to live out a fairly predictable cycle of trouble. (Even the streets have tough names, like “Grist Mill Road.”) Nevertheless, the author convincingly brings it all to life, particularly in the subplot in which Amber Lee goes missing. Her little adventure, marked by a Satanist, an aging hippie, and an iron will to survive, will certainly keep readers guessing about where she, and the rest of her family, will ultimately land.

An immersive, gritty, and engaging dive into a place where tenderness rarely shows its face.