cover image THE BOY ON THE BUS

THE BOY ON THE BUS

Deborah Schupack, . . Free Press, $23 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-7432-4220-2

One afternoon, Vermont housewife Meg discovers that the boy on the school bus outside her door is almost, but not quite, her eight-year-old son, Charlie. It's a typical X-Files scenario, but in the hands of first-time novelist Schupack it becomes an acute psychological study of alienated ex-urban family life. Meg's panic recalls her aloof, restless husband from his job in Canada and her bratty, rebellious teenage daughter from boarding school, but neither they nor the local sheriff nor the family doctor can verify Charlie's authenticity. Unlike the old, asthmatic Charlie, who was both an emotional anchor and a ball-and-chain to Meg, the new Charlie is more mature, robust and adventurous, threatening to follow his father and sister out of the house, untether Meg from her caretaker role and force her to confront her own thwarted ambitions. Schupack writes in a restrained, naturalistic style. Her characters are sharply observed, and she has an ear for familial bickering and the idioms of male withdrawal and teen exasperation ("What's so wrong with the little creep now?"). The central figure of Charlie is not as well realized; he is less a character than a symbol of familial estrangement and a projection of Meg's dread of the confines of marriage and motherhood. As a plot engine, the mystery of Charlie's identity sometimes feels forced (can't someone run a DNA test on this kid?), but the predicament allows Schupack to draw a subtle and chilling portrait of that much scrutinized figure, the postfeminist wife. (Mar.)