Author(s): Owen King

Fiction

In his wry novella, Owen King conjures an eccentric Northeastern family whose personal strife mirrors the political turmoil of our time. George is the teenage son of a single mother, and the only grandson of a family of union organisers in Maine. George's grandfather Henry, obsessed with the outcome of the 2000 election, has planted a giant billboard of homage to Al Gore in his front yard that he suspects has been defaced by the paperboy, now a sworn enemy. Meanwhile, George's mother is about to marry Dr Vic, who besides being possessed by an almost royal obliviousness, may even have voted for George W. Bush. George's efforts to aid his endearingly cranky grandfather and to undermine his mother's marriage reflect on a central question for our times: How will we fight? All together, or all alone?