DAN McCALL
JACK THE BEAR (ENGLISH)
Back Cover
“You just never know what’s going to happen next.”
Jack’s widower father—a TV clown—has become little more than a toy daddy. Between the booze, the pot, and the trauma of his wife’s death, Jack’s father cannot cope. But Jack never stops caring. His father is still his best friend.
But he’s a friend who isn’t there. Jack faces things alone—the disturbing temptations of drugs, sex, adolescent fantasies; the dangers of a bizarre neighborhood and a psychotic neighbor. Nope. When you’re growing up alone, you just never know what’s going to happen next…
Publisher: Third paperback edition, Ballantine Books
Publisher: Hardcover, Doubleday, New York
Publisher: Second paperback edition, Fawcett Juniper Books
Publisher: First paperback edition, Fawcett Crest
Praise
“Dan McCall is a writer, God help him!”—Tennessee Williams
“You don’t read Jack the Bear as much as you catch its mood or become addicted to it.” --Minneapolis Tribune
“A touch of To Kill a Mockingbird, a bit of Catcher in the Rye, and fortunately, a great deal of originality are offered in this short, intense, and sad-funny novel.”— Chicago Tribune
“It’s mainly like great, and very funny in a strange and painful way. The Catcher caught, perhaps.”— William Saroyan
“Not since Red Sky at Morning has there been such a likeable 13-year-old hero. Jack the Bear, who tells the tale, is plucky, funny, vulnerable… an immensely appealing novel… a real winner.” -- Publisher’s Weekly
“Jack the Bear is a novel of adolescence, told in the first person, which means that, first of all, it has to triumph over the not-inconsiderable weight of its own tradition—meaning, obviously… Huckleberry Finn and The Catcher in the Rye…. Dan McCall triumphs in the end…The book differs from its famous predecessors in being essentially a novel about family—its riches, tenacity and also its fragility, the strains it can and cannot bear. Jack the Bear is a vigorous, engaging, and effective novel, one which may, in a few years, call many of its readers back for a second look…. an original and substantial success.” --Larry McMurtry, N.Y. Times Book Review
Excerpt - Opening Pages
“The secret of my success with children,” Dad always says, “is that they think I’m one of them.” Lots of adults when they play with you you can tell they’d really rather be doing something else, but Dad forgot to grow up. That’s why he’s so good on KID STUFF, his TV show. He’s still good, but not like before. Obviously. It’s because of another thing he said, which was this, “All I want to do with my life is stay home and fuck my wife and play with my boys.” Well, he can still play with John, Jr. (which is me, Jack, Jack the Bear), and with Dylan my brother, who is 3, but he never ever again will be able to fuck his wife, Mom, because she died last winter. And they had been separated, not divorced, but separated for almost a year. So instead of going back and forth between houses in Syracuse NY, it’s Dad and Dylan and me in this one in Oakland, CA.
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We also play outside, in the daylight, usually in the twilight, after school before dinner, with the kids in the neighborhood. They won’t give Dad a moment’s peace. He’s always been a madman for playing with kids—and even though it could sound weird to some people he’s even more so now after all the heartbreak. Like he has to do it. I’m probably the only one who knows how much, because I see him afterward, and I know how much of himself he puts into it. But the other kids just think he’s Super Weirdo, and they giggle themselves into fits. Every afternoon around 4:30 they all come over and ask, “When is the Monster coming out?” Dad sometimes puts on his TV makeup, and then he’s one of his favorite disguises, Caesar Asparagus, and he chases everybody….He robots around saying “I want to eat a kid, want to eat a kid,” and his face is green-blue, and everybody’s laughing and scared, and his voice goes way down like it’s in the basement of the whole world, “Eat A Kid, EAT A KID,” and he says, “you are a dingaling, and you are meseshuggener, I’ll hang you by the thumbs.” And then Dad will suddenly stop and be calm and say, “Let’s all try to be adult about this. I don’t see any monsters. The Monster only appears when there is a metal light in the sky.” And then he is just like any other adult, all relaxed and bored, until somebody says, “Look, what’s that? Up in the sky, it’s an airplane, it’s a helicopter.” And Dad will say, “What? I don’t see any”—and he’ll stop short, and turn slowly, and begin to change slowly and gradually, like poor old Larry Talbot, into the Wolfman, and we all go flying in all directions and somebody not meaning to runs over Dylan and we have to stop while Dad kisses where he hurt himself and dries his tears.