Odyssey with an Antihero

The pair of suicidal mother and her son is separated by Social Services. Already rebellious with the world and fascinated with Mafias, Rappers and Drugs, the child creates trouble enough to be shifted from one foster family to the next. We see him grow up as an adult and forming his own version of the world, of course, inside his head, that has explanation for all motives and likings, and where all steps are calculated to fit his intentions. We identify with him feeling sorry for his traumatic childhood¹, and though his cunning ways or even his characters are immoral, we become his thoughts, we can sense his angst and also the love he is trying to regain in his adventures/misadventures to find his mother.

1.       It's actually the same problem with foster families. People are keen to take their cheque and shine their halo, but they don't want the problem kids, the disabled ones, or any other demanding little brats. People want children in need, but just enough to fill their own needs. Abandoned animals and children are advised to be cute. I'm well placed to tell you this

Written in the first-person confessional narrative, the story follows the recounting of an unnamed narrator who after being separated from his mother at an early age develops unlikely characters that are welcomed nowhere. However, his seamless descriptions pose, a criminal mind, a naturally formed status that has both tender and crooked selves. Money matters to him the most (sex and drugs accompanies it) and he has high hopes for himself, at times completely immersed in anticipation, grandeur and imagery. He realizes that the people around him cannot understand him; also his attempts to form relationships are busted one way or other. He flees the scenes in disturbing acts, only to follow another of his important passions or to be free. He fakes pathos, fabricates lies, all the while taking doses of drugs to keep his invented spirit² alive.

2.       … In life, you have to get going without asking yourself too many questions. Questions give birth to doubts and doubts attract trouble. Once you've made up your mind, you need to run at the wall until it falls over. I'm a decisive man.

Already dreaming of being in prison and getting tattoos one day he looks for houses he can burglar or items around him he can steal. With his own revenge list, crime is his passion, and it never makes him feel guilty about anything he does (even killing the cats). His attempt to be among and like other people is never realized; having no close friends or relatives. All the same, the name of the chapters defines a coming of age story, where in a grand perspective, we see a troubled orphan boy trying to get his family back, having no sense of his oddities. His personal world is perfect, full of proofs (Well Documented!) but also with troubles. Mama's Boy is a voice we have to hear it to believe it. With traces of Catcher in the Rye, Mama's Boy is a dark, funny and even saddening tale of an orphaned boy where hypocrisies are to be re-examined and immorality to be re-considered.

Author: David Goudreault

Translator: JC Sutcliffe

Publisher: Book*Hug Press

Page Count: 200

Price: $20

Author Photo Credit: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Goudreault
Review Copy Courtesy: Book*Hug Press