Brinker's Edge

Fourteen-year-old Brinker Adams, the narrator, is fatherless, sometimes shallow, sarcastic, usually honest and likable. He is a character adolescents will strongly identify with. Barnesville, the town where he and his mother now live is a character tooold and quiet and peaceful on the surface, but like the barn behind Brinkers house, the town can both delight and devour. Murray is twelve and still clueless, a sidekick and source of humor. Betsy is fourteen, full of life, independent, a survivor of her mothers alcoholism and later of her abandonment.

Brinker sees most of the adults as stereotypes, except Gary, his mothers live-in boyfriend who develops in Brinkers eyes from a wimp to a role model a perceiver, a victor, a strong, witty man-child.

Adolescence in Brinkers Edge is not a problem to be resolved. Rather, it is an emotional roller-coaster of related episodes. During the summer Brinker looses his old family along with his illusions of innocence and permanenceand of powerlessness. He finds bonds stronger than the passing of time. He discovers that he must keep moving forward. The basic metaphor is a tightrope, the edge, and the glue of the plot is the struggle to maintain equilibrium.