THE HA-HA

Richard Poe’s voice, gritty, tough, with an edge of cynicism, has the staccato rhythms of a complex and troubled man. That man, Howard Kapotash, the narrator, who was senselessly wounded by a mine 16 days into his Vietnam tour, has been unable to speak, write, or read in the 30 years since. Though imprisoned by silence, he is nonetheless asked by his old girlfriend, Sylvia, to watch her 9-year-old son, Ryan, while she goes for a stint at drug detox. In the painful interior monologue that follows, baseball, breakfast waffles, and betrayal batter Howard into finding his humanity again. King’s debut as a novelist moves us without sentiment to feel deeply for a man whose crying need to communicate enables him finally to do so. P.E.F. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 05]