Background Information

PLOT SUMMARY: This book is an autobiography of Chris Crutchers life. So basically, this book is a summary of Chris Crutchers life. His childhood was very full and he had many adventures along with his brother. Chris was a very wimpy kid who could not run 100 yards without having to stop and breathe. He was a huge troublemaker, and whenever something big would happen, Chris would be the one everyone looked at. He lived in a small town, so that if he ever made a mistake, everyone in the town knew about it. Chris also had a very quick temper. When he was a little child, he would often get so mad that he would hurt himself. He became a teacher for a while, and then he started writing stories. He became a writer when he made up a book report for school and got a good grade on it. That is what started off his whole author career. Now, Chris is a therapist and his life experiences helped him relate to his clients in his therapist career.
SETTiNG: This book is placed in the small town of Cascade, Idaho. The years of his early childhood life were in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. The town is very small, so that all the boys were forced to play sports, even if they had no athletic ability whatsoever or any interest at all. That is what happened to Chris, who had no athletic ability at all.
CHARACTER DESCRiPTiON AND DEVELOPMENT:
The main character in this book is Chris Crutcher. This book is indeed an ill-advised autobiography, so the main character has to be the author. Chris started out his early life as a dateless, broken-toothed, scabbed-over, God-fearing dweeb. He would always get into trouble for doing one thing or another. He worked with his father at the gas station, and he knew where the key to the vending machine was hidden, so he was not very athletic. He loved junk food and because of that, he was very unpopular. But that didn’t stop him from being a trouble maker. Chris had no athletic ability at all, so when he went camping one time, he was so slow, that the leader made him walk in front of everyone and no one was allowed to pass him. Finally, he graduated, and wanted to become a teacher. He finally found that he was a pretty good swimmer, and later, that he was also a pretty good runner. He then decided that he was a good therapist, so he became a therapist and is still in that career to this day.