Hiding Places

Is 17-year-old Mark Lambert an emancipated minor or a throwaway? This gritty but sweet novel offers a protagonist who has seen too much: his parents' divorce, the drug-induced automobile-crash death of his physician father, school failure, ulcers, physically abusive treatment from a macho stepfather who abhors Mark's wish to write, a suicide attempt and a retreat from his timid mother, who can't seem to protect him. Now his stepfather wants him to get discipline at military school. Mark escapes their reality by running off to New York's East Village. There he eventually finds freedom through his efforts at new relationships, a job and in school. In a gradually evolved, believable plot, Mark comes to leave behind responsibility for events beyond his control (e.g., the deaths of his father and Dr. Sam, a school administrator) and to accept responsibility for his own aspirations and achievements. Ages 14-18. (March)