The Acorn Plan

This straightforward, hard-edged coming-of-age novel focuses on 22-year-old Billy Riley, an intelligent but undisciplined Marine veteran whose life has begun to parallel that of his unemployed, alcoholic Uncle Bubble. After stabbing a soldier in a drunken brawl, Billy wakes up in jail to face his late father's friend, Wallace Bain, an astute lawyer who devises a plan to extricate Billy from the self-destructive cycle of drinking and belligerence. The lawyer's ally is Billy's formidable Aunt Ruby, a lonely woman who adores her nephew but who has serious personal problems of her own. Billy's passionate, sympathetic liaison with Cassie Hicks, an exotic dancer of drive, ambition and self-awareness, gives him new insight, but then Cassie moves to New York to pursue her dream of becoming a ballet dancer. With the aid of a canny psychotherapist, Billy is finally able to take a shrewd look at his bleak town and unsavory companions and decides it's time to reshape his future. Firmly controlled and laced with wry humor, this engaging narrative is buoyed by strong, individualistic characters. (July)