Reflections on a Childhood DeferredSometimes childhood feels like a present that never quite got unwrapped. I had that feeling twice over with Hub.
Our title character is a pre-teen boy who lives in a river town in Arkansas. He seems the product of a loving, relatively successful family, but his life is centered around two other people.
One is Uncle Ethel, a wise old man who lives
on an isolated island, alone but for his aged dog and his shotgun. The other is a trouble-making
pal named Hitesy, who badgers Hub to do things he knows he shouldn’t, goading him with the magic word “chicken” whenever Hub hesitates. Hitesy
brags his father doesn’t care what he does, and dares Hub to follow his
example.
