Leitch, Will (2005). Catch. NY: Penguin Razorbill. ISBN: 1595140697. 304 pages.
Tim Temples is a typical midwestern high school jock: popular with girls, a noted athlete, cocky and a little bit of an asshole. During the summer before his freshman year in high school, Tim takes a job at his small town's bagel factory and works beside his high school friends who have likely just begun their factory careers. There, he meets Helena, an older woman (23 to his 17) with whom he begins a relationship that will make him question his plans for the future. Sounds like your typical YA novel, doesn't it? This first adolescent offering from Leitch exceeds the coming-of-age formula; Tim's first person voice gradually matures during the course of the novel in a way that is subtle yet effecting, while the small town setting--which could so easily become cliche--is well-wrought. A secondary plot dealing with Tim's relationship with his older brother, who also left home to go to college but who returned four years later sans diploma, provides more depth to the story (though I do wish that more had been made of the character of Tim's brother). As with Catherine Clark's Truth or Dairy and Frozen Rodeo, the setting of Will's story becomes something of a character with whom Tim has a comfortable, familiar relationship that he is reluctant to give up. This one is not going to fly off the shelves, but will find an audience among teens who might have run across Leitch via the website he edits (www.blacktable.com), or who are fans of his more well-known author associate, Tom Perrotta. |
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