Delp (The Last Good Water
) finds dark inspiration for these loose stories in the complicated transformations of boys to men. In “Commandoes,” set in a post-WWII American suburb, some neighborhood boys teach a lesson to the meanest kid on the block, neighborhood terror Daryl Hannenberg, whose stepdad was hauled off to prison and who has a Hitler poster in his room. Delp obliquely implies Daryl’s anger has a lot to do with the expectations society heaps on boys. Subsequent tales explore these assumptions, such as a bloody-minded sense of honor assumed by a sixth-grade boy in “The Trees Growing Up Around Us,” who repeatedly takes beatings by his more practiced boxing partner. Delp’s boys and adolescents grow into overweight, hard-drinking middle-aged men, such as Inky Sewell in “We Are Living in the Future,” a star high school football player turned unemployed, self-pitying beer guzzler. Delp is very at home in places where there’s little hope amid the self-perpetuating ordeals of failure and defeat. It’s not for everyone, but readers who cut their teeth on Jesus’ Son
will want to take a look. (Mar.)
