Right by My Side

Book excerpt: Move over, Holden Caulfield, and meet Marshall Field Finney, in the 30th anniversary edition of Right by My Side, by a celebrated chronicler of Black middle class life in the American Midwest A Penguin Classic With wit and realism, David Haynes presents a different kind of Holden Caulfield in fifteen-year-old Marshall Field Finney, an ordinary, sullen teenager who discovers storytelling as a way to ease his adolescent anger and family tensions. Living with his parents in “Washington Park,'' a housing development outside St. Louis, Missouri in the 1980s, his high-strung mother walks out on him and his father, a flawed yet strong man who manages the local landfill. Marshall's two best friends, one Black and one white, are his only allies, as they navigate school and family life together. Through these relationships, Haynes poses Marshall's universal questions about his place in his community and what’s next in his life. Ultimately, Marshall’s story proves that people take care of each other, families take care of others, and a boy finds his own resilience to become a young man. "[Haynes] belongs to the old realist tradition that believes that everyday life, if truly rendered, is more than exciting enough."—Los Angeles Times Book Review "Haynes offers engaging characters who tackle fundamental issues such as love, family and benevolence," Publishers Weekly