An Inauspicious Debut!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                    Daniel Magariel's "One Of The Boys" is short enough to be considered a novella.  Too bad it is derivative of Cormac McCarthy's "No Country For Old Men."  But where that story satisfied, this one does not.

                                      Magariel offers up a tale of two boys done in by poor parenting--a trampy, abandoning mother, and a psychotic, drug-addicted father.  The story, like these poor boys, go back and forth between them , as does the reader, like a bunch of yo yo's.  They plan an escape which I kept hoping for, but it is the author's not highly unique idea to leave them high and dry, where they are, with us knowing the boys will ultimately turn out to be as no good as their parents.

                                       If this book makes any Ten Best lists, at year's end, well, gag me with a spoon!  Hope springs eternal with me, when it comes to offering up something to say,  So, let Mr. Magariel write something else, and prove it.  Or prove me wrong!

                                         Hey, Daniel, Zadie Smith finally did it, and so, I bet, can you!

                                         But not on this first try!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!