There's no getting around the fact that this is an educational novel, clearly intended to teach you about an issue. There's no attempt to hide this. That said, Canepa avoids lecturing. The novel isn't About Homelessness; at its core, this is an adventure story, transplanted to the modern urban landscape of freeways and gas stations and abandoned buildings. In the process, it transforms this mundane setting into an unfamiliar and often menacing place. It's a very fast-reading novel. I picked it up intending to read the first few pages, and when I put it down I was halfway through the book.
Like any adventure story, the plot is fairly straightforward and episodic, beginning with Kyle Dearmond, a college student and part-time restaurant worker, learning of his father's death. In speaking to his father's lawyer, Kyle learns that his long-dead mother may not be dead after all -- she was kidnapped when Kyle was a baby, and her body was never found. So, rather than going back to school after the funeral, Kyle sets off to find his aunt, hoping she'll help him find out more about his mother.
When his aunt refuses to help, Kyle starts hitchhiking with no real destination in mind. He soon finds himself living on the streets among the homeless of San Francisco, where he makes friends (and enemies) and learns how to survive with the contents of his backpack and the help and advice of people he meets, some helpful, some dangerous, most just trying to stay alive and sane.
Many of these people are colorful, memorable characters, most notably Gareth, the mysterious drifter who mentors Kyle; Phil, the heartbroken former lawyer; and Jackie, the adventurous Food Not Bombs volunteer, with whom Kyle has an awkward, mostly undefined relationship that rings utterly true. He also makes an enemy in Angel, a drug dealer, when he befriends Angel's abused girlfriend.
Kyle himself never quite experiences the hopelessness that many other characters do. He has a safety net, in the form of the money his father left him. I never quite forgot that all he really has to do is call up his lawyer. At times it seems unbelievable that he doesn't. It would make sense if he hated his life and school and didn't ever want to go back. But his life beforehand doesn't seem that bad; Kyle is ambivalent about college, but he doesn't despise it enough to make me believe that living on the street is preferable. By contrast, his life on the street, though he enjoys parts of it, he seems to consider mostly scary and painful. I don't quite understand why he keeps at it so long. But his eventual decision was a pleasant surprise, both unexpected and completely fitting.
The conceit is that Kyle, after all this is over, is writing his memoir. It mostly works; Canepa's writing style achieves the feel of a personal diary... if the diarist's parents were reading over his shoulder. Kyle is a little too polite to tell this story properly. Even his deepest, darkest confessions are oddly reserved. This holding-back feels a little awkward and coy in a story where some fairly dark, gritty things happen to various characters -- suicide, domestic violence, and drug addictions feature prominently in the plot. It would work if this primness had been established as an important part of the narrator's personality, but Kyle is too much of a blank slate for it to fit him 100%.
Aside from this one issue, the writing style fits the story well; the first-person narration reminded me a bit of the young-adult writer Gary Paulsen. In fact, this could easily be considered a YA novel, with its quick pace, clear writing, and naďve young protagonist, as well as its inform-while-entertaining approach. But whether you're a teen or an adult, this is a fun read that might teach you something along the way.
