Stanley James

If you can imagine Huckleberry Finn crossed with One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest then you have a sense of what Stanley James has to offer. This satirically humorous occasionally dark but always intensely human novel will trigger every familiar emotion and may even awaken some that are dormant. It is so engaging that it comes with a warning but few readers will be able to stop reading before they are swept away and changed by this incredible story of a learning disabled boy. While Stanley James masquerades as an innocent story this account of children enrolled in a new Catholic school during the postwar years of American confidence is not a naive tale. Stanley James is born December 21 1950 in Alexandria Minnesota where progress is an article of faith and the new middle class lives in homogenous homes on tree-named streets. Marring the optimism of this small town are whispers of damaged children of inappropriate miracles and of other unmentionable imperfections. One of the flawed children is Stanley James another is the narrator. The narrator is Stanley Jamess best friend and cousin. They and a number of other kids are imperfect children - damaged little souls that dont quite meet the expectations of this idyllic small town. At Saint Marys Catholic school they are gathered up labeled retarded and neatly packed away in the Ungraded Room where they are entrusted to Sister Mary Ann. Like the God of the Old Testament Sister Mary Ann is powerful aloof and dedicated to justice. She will never punish a child who doesnt deserve it but she will never miss an opportunity to do so. At Saint Marys school various mysteries unfold. A fire is set in the church - and of coursesuspicion falls on the Protestants. We think it must be the Protestant boys the boys who call us Cat-Lickers suggests one of the Catholic schoolboys. Or my dad said it could even be grown up men. They burn nigger churches in the South and maybe they want to burn ours too. The