Arthur Berndt has just become a teenager. No small
accomplishment considering he’s been at war with his father, society, and
himself since he began to walk. Abused
by August, his father, Arthur is still afraid to confront his tormentor.
Instead, he continues to commit antisocial acts out of resentment that only
serve to make him a pariah in the community and a black sheep in his family’s
eyes. The other members of his
family—Marguerite, his mother, and Ruth and Liz, his sisters—cope with the
oppressive atmosphere at home in their own way by popping antacid pills, overachieving,
and drinking, respectively.
School is the only place where Arthur has ever experienced
some sense of fitting in. That flirtation with normalcy is now put to the test as
being a teenager only heightens Arthur’s longstanding feeling that there is something wrong with
him.
Sexual assault at the hands of his employer, committing
arson as payback against a hostile neighbor, and stumbling upon a dead mobster:
these are all a part of Arthur’s experience in his first full year as a
teenager. He also inadvertently puts a stop to his sister’s suicide attempt. Throughout
all this chaos, Arthur finds time to court a fellow outsider—a Native American
girl in his eighth-grade class.
Though he survives the year, there is no visible peace on
the horizon. There won’t be any, unless a truce is declared between father and
son. So far, neither side seems prepared to give an inch. If their war rages
on, Arthur can only hope he lives to see his eighteenth birthday and escapes
from his house of horrors. As the curtain closes on Arthur: A Year in His
Life, he has four more years to endure.
