A Plague Year

Bloor (London Calling) revisits his days teaching high school English to find parallels between Daniel Defoe’s classic about the bubonic plague in 17th-century London and a (real) methamphetamine epidemic in Pennsylvania. In a crackerjack opening, readers meet ninth-grader Tom Coleman outside his father’s grocery store when he prevents the robbery of an ATM. Robberies—especially of cleaning supplies and Sudafed—have escalated as Blackwater, a coal-mining town, succumbs to addiction. At school, Tom and his sister, Lilly, attend drug counseling after she gets caught smoking pot. In these sessions, they reconnect with Arthur, a cousin whose family has already suffered the fallout of drug abuse. Bloor’s villains—a psychiatrist who specializes in rehab, but is a user himself, and a craven football coach—are cartoonish, but characters closer to Tom have more dimension, especially the Food Giant staff: Tom’s father, assistant manager Uno, and Bobby, who has Down syndrome. The plot is message-heavy but goes down easily because Bloor excels at writing vivid scenes. Tom is a thoroughly sympathetic narrator as he grows to realize there is value in “blooming where you are planted.” Ages 12–up. (Sept.)