In 1969 San Francisco, young single mother Lisa Fay finds herself swept into a drug deal and looking at 15 years in jail before parole. Her young son, Wrecker—named for his destructive tendencies—is sent to live with Lisa Fay’s sister, Meg, and her husband Len in Humboldt County, California, although Lisa Fay is not aware of his fate.

Also unbeknownst to Lisa Fay (and system administrators), Meg is brain-damaged following a dental infection and unable to care for Wrecker. Len turns for help to his next-door neighbors at Bow Farm. There, in what amounts to be a commune, live Melody, Ruth, Willow and Johnny Appleseed. This motley crew agree to help out and find themselves falling for Wrecker. Eventually, Melody convinces Len to adopt Wrecker but to leave the actual raising of him to her.

The book covers the time from Wrecker’s arrival at Bow Farm, just before his third birthday, until the time he is twenty. But it’s more than the story (as compelling as it is) of an angry boy becoming a strong and gentle young man.

It’s a story about families, how they form and grow, and how they change. The diverse & flawed characters of Bow Farm, and Len and Meg, become Wrecker’s family, and Melody, his mother. Mother love—both Melody’s and Lisa Fay’s—drives the book.

Sometimes she looked at him and was horrified…(W)hat if she made a mistake? No. What if the mistakes she made (of course she made mistakes, how was she to know how to raise a child like this, any child) mounted up and somehow tipped the scale toward bad? What if she made—a monster? It would be her fault. Everyone would know she had been a BAD MOTHER.

I was hooked on Wrecker from the first paragraph and could seldom put it down. Lisa Fay’s longing for her son and her fear of losing him wove throughout the story, keeping a tension that was balanced by the love and hope on Bow Farm.

Without wasting any words, Wood brings alive the setting:

There was a man on the moon. All across America children sat cross-legged on shag rugs and watched F Troop and Gilligan’s Island, Gigantor, Bewitched.

She is skilled at capturing emotions in a few perfectly chosen words.

She knew how grief could shove you off your moorings. She was afraid that he would drift so far he would lose his way back.

Wrecker is never cliché in its setting or its emotions. As much as it is a story of being foster or adoptive parents, it is not one-sided. I felt as empathetic toward Lisa Fay as I did toward Melody. There are beautiful insights and rich emotion, caught in spare and lovely prose.

I very much enjoyed Wrecker and rate it a solid four stars out of five.

Link for my Canadian readers:
Wrecker: a Novel