3'5 ⭐

I was immediately drawn-in and engrossed in this dark tale from page one. Tawni O'Dell is one hell of a writer. Her prose so convincingly captures the hopeless feel of a small coal mining town in the hills of Western Pennsylvania. This story isn't for the faint of heart. Heavy themes of murder, sexual abuse, incest and violence run at the heart of this novel. The inside jacket describes Harley as the heartbreaking and lovable hero of the novel. That is not at all how I see it. Harley is the barely- functioning, severely dysfunctional survivor of a physically abusive father, who beat his children from the tender age of three.

"The crack of his hard grown-up hand meeting her soft baby cheek was the loudest sound I ever heard. Even louder than her screams. I watched the bewildered terror cloud her eyes, and I saw myself in them... I knew dad had destroyed her courage." this for accidentally knocking over his can of beer."

Harley has been left responsible for the upbringing of three sisters, age six to sixteen; his mother serving a life sentence for the murder of his father. They live in a ramshackle house, while Harley works two low end jobs, trying to keep the bill collectors at bay, with enough left to keep enough mac n cheese and hot dogs, pop tarts and cereal on the table. This he does with respectable dedication and plenty of self-sacrifice, while he tries to get his head screwed on right. Reluctantly working with his court appointed therapist, he begins to unravel what really happened. Along the way, he manages to lose his virginity with a neighbor, the married mother of the youngest girls friend. When this relationship started, I was buying in to it, but at some point, I stopped believing... anyway, didn't detract too much from the overall story. So... if you're in to dark, depressing, but extremely well written novels with unhappy endings, this one's for you!

Audio 5 Stars
Story 3 Stars

The back cover synopsis for this book sounded interesting, and the small town western Pennsylvania locale was a change from the usual big city settings.

Unfortunately, I could not get into the story. After 70 pages of this 405-page tome, I gave up. I just couldn’t take any more of this plodding tale. Several front cover and inside blurbs call it funny or hilarious. In the 4 chapters I read, I didn’t encounter one thing that generated even a mild grin.

A note on the cover says this is an Oprah’s Book Club selection. I should have taken my cue from that and skipped this book entirely. Nothing against Oprah, it’s just that her tastes and mine have as much in common as the USA and USSR at the height of the Cold War.

So, another book for the ‘Did not finish’ pile.

Dark and brutal. Goes to and lingers in places most writers/books refuse to. Incredible feat for a woman to write in first-person as a 20-year-old man/boy with a violent streak he can only barely control. I'm close to speechless.

I loved this book from the moment I found it on a Salvation Army shelf in Wilkes Barre, PA while visiting my in-laws. I have read and reread this novel so many times over the years, each time discovering something new and interesting, something that I hadn't noticed before.

Harley is an 18 year old with the weight of the world on his shoulders. After his mom is arrested and convicted of shooting and killing her abusive husband, without any warning or explanation, Harley gets two jobs and died everything he can to keep his 3 younger sisters under his care and in their rural Western PA family home. Harley will not accept "welfare" because he's worried about what his deceased father would think.

Harley truly is a character. He has all kinds of quirks and he's divided by confusion, guilt, a touch of insanity, and love for his dysfunctional family which eventually causes his downfall. When Harley's mom is taken to prison, she barely says goodbye and Harley resents her deeply for what he saw as a huge betrayal. Harley believed that despite the abuse, he was a pretty normal teenage guy with a family he "didn't hate". So when he comes home one day to see his despondent looking mom being hauled away in the back of a police cruiser with a vacant look in her eyes, he didn't believe what he's seeing. And unfortunately, his mother refuses to explain her actions to him after the fact.

Amber is Harley's 16 year old sister "with hair the color of shiny penny". It's clear from the beginning that Amber and Harley have a tension charged dynamic. Amber is testing Harley's boundaries while trying to make him jealous by running off with any boy who gives her attention.

Misty, the middle sister, is 12 years old and a tomboy. She was there dad's favorite in Harley's opinions and she rarely got a beating from him which Harley resented as well. When she was hit, she never cried which shamed Harley greatly because of his extreme sensitivity. Misty was "more of a bit than Harley ever was" in their father's eyes as she loved hunting with her dad and spending time with him doing "manly" things.

Jodie the youngest sister, is six and has long golden locks. She thinks hot dogs cut into pieces are choking hazards and she collects stuffed dinosaurs and umbrellas from the local Chinese restaurant. She is so sweet and loveable and endearing. When is her turn to "cook" dinner she makes everyone a mean bowl of cereal. Jodie is great at keeping secrets and little does Harley know, these secrets could change his life irrevocably.

Harley works and daydreams the days away until he has a close encounter with the happily married mother of Jodie's best friend. Little did he know this encounter would change the course of her life and the lives of Harley's family forever.

It's raw, powerful, and distributing. It shocks and amazes me every time I read it again. The depth of the characters is what tired me to this book. And the beautiful, vivid descriptions held my attention. I loved the way O'Dell wrote these characters because they do perfectly imperfect. A flawed family forced to grow up when they're all still just children s with no healthy role models to help them navigate their new reality.

I try to read this once a year just to remind myself that this was one of my first favorite books as a young adult discovering adult literature. This is a twisted story I warn those who are squeamish about sex issues, dysfunctional families, familial violence and taboo topics to avoid this novel. This book is not for the faint of heart as I wrote on the acknowledgments page almost 20 years ago! Reader beware. And enjoy!

What a hard book to review. Harley has an awful life he has to take care of his three sisters after his mom gets incarcerated due to killing their dad....and what a dysfunctional family it is. This book is so gritty, dark and dysfuntional its hard to articulate.

Ok let me try: Harley is working two jobs to take care of his three sisters . All have their issues but that makes it even harder. You have three sisters and one is in her teenage years trying to get out of dodge, second age girl who just cant find her footing and youngest girl who is trying to just do her thing. Harley then becomes infatuated with the woman up the street who money doesn't appear to be a problem. How this all ties together is amazing and heartbreaking at the same time. This is a sad story of life and circumstance and will break your heart.

The book spends the time to try and navigate life and how it affects all involved. This family broke my heart and this story will be with me for awhile......

PS: had to watch the movie immediately because this book so resonated with me

TW: There is a ton of abuse

This book will be heavy on heart for awhile and not an easy read for sure

Only reason it lost a 1/2 star was because author used a ton like a TON of caps and while it worked it thru most of book it pulled my attention about half way

I have had this book on my to read shelf for a long time. I passed it over so often I honestly lost track. I decided FINALLY!! I was going to read this book before the end of the year. I think the fact that it was an Oprah book club selection had me a bit turned off. I have not had good luck with the relatively recent Oprah picks. However, this one was fantastic! It was such a great character study into dysfunction that I could not look away from the proverbial train-wreck that was unfolding in front of my eyes. Yes, one could argue that some of the minor characters were not fully drawn and there were some gaping holes in timeline and motivations BUT I'm prepared to overlook them because otherwise this was just good! Really good!

I cannot wait to read my way through the author's other books. I've already added them to my to-read list AND purchased one with Christmas money. (My family knows what to give me!! Haha)

My eldest sister recommended this to me, and I was grabbed by her reference to The Catcher in the Rye, as she felt that Harley Altmyer, the 19-year-old who narrates the story in Back Roads, reminded her a lot of 17-year-old Holden Caulfield's in Salinger's novel. Having now read Back Roads, I could understand why she, and others, have made this connection: after all, both characters share a sense of being cut-off, feeling awkward, self-conscious and isolated; both feel frustration and a deep-felt pain, anger and anguish about their lives and circumstances; both are trapped and feel unable to escape; both, too, interestingly, tell their stories in the present tense, while in fact they are reflecting back on their lives from within the enclosure of an institution.

It is, without a doubt, an accomplished first novel: O'Dell has created, understood and convincingly portrayed the personality of a vulnerable, angry male adolescent in Harley (along with Amber, as a female psychological mirror to Harley's own pain and anguish). The themes are gritty, the family situation heartbreaking, the pace is gentle while the story is troubling and, if at times predictable, none the less the characters still remain with you long after closing the last page, so it is definitely worth reading. (And if you haven't read Salinger's novel, please, please do - it is a genuine modern classic of fiction that is beautifully written, sad and touching.)

But the qualitative difference between Back Roads and Catcher in the Rye, and the character Harley and Holden respectively, and generally in the novels themselves, is in the language the characters use to narrate, as well as, of course, the respective author's difference in the quality of their individual styles of writing. On this basis, it would be unfair in this regard to compare this, Tawni O'Dell's first novel, with J. D. Salinger's first, Catcher in the Rye, because the comparison sadly would mean failure for O'Dell. Stylistically Salinger's is without doubt far more accomplished; O'Dell, too, sometimes tries too hard with Harley's own use of language with certain uses of metaphors and similies that don't convince because they seem overly poetic and contrived set against the rest of his easy-going, natural voice; also, while Jody, the youngest (six years old) of one Harley's three sisters, is cute and charming, and does come across as a convincing child of that age, there are too many of what struck me as "cutsey" notes written by her with the always poor-spelling (the poor spelling, presumably, meaning to reinforce the reader's sense of her being so sweet, young and innocent, etc).

None the less, the two other sisters, Amber and Misty, are more compellingly drawn (probably because they are older and more troubled). On the plus side, too, structurally, O'Dell's novel is strong, and well-thought through, and just as good as Salinger's in this regard. And while one of the key plot outcomes - a trauma in the family separate from the murder, which I won't be explicit about in order not to spoil for new readers - struck me as predictable, the other major plotline, the actual circumstances of the killing of Harley's father, as it gradually built and became realised, was very well done.

Okay so this book...I went into it not expecting anything - it's not normally the book I'd read. It contains some very mature topics so if you're not comfortable reading those then this book really isn't for you!

So I decided to pick this book up purely because Jennifer Morrison is going to be playing Callie in the film adaptation and she's been talking about it for a while. I can't wait to see how the film adaptation turns out and how Jen portrays Callie on screen.

This book honestly made me so shocked, angry, sad and confused (In a good way)! I've got to say the story was messed up aha! I'm still not over the ending honestly I had to drop my book and silently scream into my hands!!

Never before I've read characters so visceral, resilient, strong, so brave, and yet so utterly self-destructive; bent on harming themselves when they can forgive each other. This was an Oprah Book Club choice, but I’ll forgive that.

This is without a doubt hands down, absolutely one of my favorite, favorite books. Of all Time. In fact, this one here is right up there next to Fools Die by Mario Puzo, on the very top. It's so haunting, beautifully written. The characters are so real that I feel for them every time I read it. I could pick this up any time, anywhere, and it will move me just the same, every single time. It is fallow like that. But the emotional impact, oh boy, remains the same.

Devastating.

Let's try a sample of her writing shall we, just a taste. Okay : (SPOILERS DOWN BELOW):

It wasn't fair he got the chance and I didn't. I wouldn't have wasted it. If I had known Mom was going to kill Dad that night as I went off to Skip's house to drink contraband beers and bullshit about horny college chicks, I would've stopped first and cleared some things up. I would've asked him why he didn't like me. I would've apologized for being such a disappointment to him. And I would've told him I loved him- because I did- in some joyless, unsatisfying way that hurt instead of healed, but I knew it was still love.

---------

In my hands right now, this book feels as vague and familiar as home; comfortable - oh how I love 2006. For a year can be a home, too. But I love Another now and for another. And God, I am tempted to reread this immediately, at once but no, I'll just read one of her newer novels sitting emptily on my shelf. I can't recommend this book enough, in fact, I would urge everyone to read this pronto. Don't miss out on this. Please feel the urgency.

Tawni O'Dell is a remarkably talented woman in the same vein as Janet Fitch, she is not only a favorite author of mine but also one of the best people in the known world.

I wish could give Back Roads a thousand stars, but already a thousand suns have gone into making this one.

Let this devastate you. Let it.

Tawni O'Dell, Back Roads (Viking, 2000)

I find the whole thing incredibly amusing.

Had a man written this book, word for word, the character of Harley Altmeyer would no doubt be blazoned on the front as "an unstoppable sociopath about to explode" (fill in the correct number of exclamation points, depending on era and author). Instead, the back cover blurb calls him "wonderfully touching." Oh, please.

Thank heaven Tawni O'Dell is a much better writer than her blurbist, because Harley Altmeyer is the least likable hero I've run across since Michael Moorcock decided an anorexic albino with a big black sword sounded like a good idea. Note I didn't say antihero there; Harley Altmeyer is certainly the hero of this book in that, while O'Dell keeps him so unlikable he gets nauseating at times, we never stop feeling sympathy for him.

Altmeyer is on the brink of his twentieth birthday, and as we open he's sitting in the box in the local police station being grilled by three cops for killing his girlfriend-- who just happens to be the thirty-four-year-old wife of the next-door neighbor. Not terribly surprising, the cops muse, given his roots; Harley's mother was convicted of killing his father a couple years previous, and is now sitting in prison in Indiana, PA (I point this out because for the first hundred fifty pages I wondered how they could drive from Pennsylvania to Indiana in two hours-- and I spent over half my life living less than an hour from Indiana, PA. Obviously a truly memorable place). Harley spends about two hundred fifty pages spinning out his tale, and it's a doozy. After his mom iced his dad, he was dead and she was in jail, and the task of raising his three younger sisters fell squarely on his shoulders. Nineteen, saddled with all the bills, working two jobs, and having to raise three sisters, ranging in age from six to sixteen. It's not exactly a Frank Capra film. And Harley, whose love/hate relationship with all women borders on the psychotic, is in no way going to be mistaken for Jimmy Stewart (actually, I saw Giovanni Ribisi, circa his memorable X-Files appearance, playing this guy).

If you've got half a brain and have read enough books along these lines, you've probably got half of it figured before you open the front cover. But O'Dell's writing is so thoroughly disingenuous, and Harley (the very essence of the unreliable narrator!) is so straightforward and quasi-logical that he's completely believable. And so, despite the general predictability of the plot points, they still hit with a roundhouse.

The tendency, of course, is to compare this with the other novels in the Oprah stable, but it pulls me in a different direction; there's more here that invites comparison with Ian McEwan's weepingly good first novel, The Cement Garden (and not just the overall plot, either). While McEwan has turned into something of a washed-out pansy since he hit us over the head with that particular cement block, I still have high hopes for O'Dell. This is stark, simple, minimal, easy to read, compelling, with some of the strongest characterization I've come across in years, and somehow the revelations that just kind of wander through the last fifty pages (no big emotional revelatory scenes here) still manage to surprise, not to mention tug at the heartstrings.

Oprah found a good'un here, that's for sure. Let's just hope O'Dell doesn't end up a washed-out pansy who moves to England for the sole purpose of getting short-listed for the Booker Prize. *** 1/2