Rule of the Bone

Russell Banks

3.88

9,166 ratings by Goodreads

ISBN 10: 1482971348 ISBN 13: 9781482971347

Publisher: HarperCollins and Blackstone Audio, 2013

[Read by Kirby Heyborne]

When we first meet him, Chappie is a punkedout teenager living in an upstate New York trailer park. During this time, he slips into drugs and petty crime. Rejected by his parents, out of school, and in trouble with the police, he claims for himself a new identity as a permanent outsider; he gets a crossedbones tattoo on his arm and takes the name ''Bone.'' He hops from place to place, finally settling in an abandoned school bus with Rose, a child he rescues from a fasttalking pedophile. There Bone meets IMan, an exiled Rastafarian, and together they travel to the ganjagrowing mountains of Jamaica. It is an amazing journey of selfdiscovery through a world of magic, violence, betrayal, and redemption.

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From the Publisher:

Written in the tradition of the great classics of American literature Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye, Rule of the Bone is an astonishing novel about a homeless youth living on the edge of society -- a lost boy who maps the cruel world that surrounds him with mother-wit, humor and appealing honesty.

From the Back Cover:

When we first meet him, Chappie is a punked-out teenager living with his mother and abusive stepfather in an upstate New York trailer park. During this time, he slips into drugs and petty crime. Rejected by his parents, out of school and in trouble with the police, he claims for himself a new identity as a permanent outsider; he gets a crossed-bones tattoo on his arm, and takes the name "Bone."

He finds dangerous refuge with a group of biker-thieves, and then hides in the boarded-up summer house of a professor and his wife. He finally settles in an abandoned schoolbus with Rose, a child he rescues from a fast-talking pedophile. There Bone meets I-Man, an exiled Rastafarian, and together they begin a second adventure that takes the reader from Middle America to the ganja-growing mountains of Jamaica. It is an amazing journey of self-discovery through a world of magic, violence, betrayal and redemption.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.