A Fly Named Alfred

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

A Fly Named Alfred continues the story of Harper Winslow begun in
Trembath’s first young-adult novel, The Tuesday Cafe. Now in Grade 11,
Harper remains a social outcast, but his occasional writing for the
school newspaper leads to new troubles. When “Alfred,” the anonymous
writer of a satirical column called “Fly on the Wall,” mocks one of
the school’s most popular girls and her local hood boyfriend, Harper
is pressured by Tommy Rowe, star football player and school bully, to
use his newspaper connections to uncover the Fly’s identity within the
next month, “or else.” Harper’s assignment is actually quite
simple, for he is the individual behind the pseudonym; however, the
choices for Harper/the Fly are equally unpleasant—to be beaten up by
Tommy as Harper or by the boyfriend as the Fly.

Despite the seriousness of Harper’s situation, the book is frequently
very humorous, especially when Harper, attempting to dupe Tommy,
involves Billy, one of the “intellectually challenged” adults from
his writing group, the Tuesday Cafe; would-be actor Billy, an avid movie
fan and mystery/western reader, adopts, with hilarious results, the
speech patterns of the characters he has most recently encountered. The
plot arrives at a believable conclusion, and Harper learns that the
reality of a person’s life is often different from its surface
appearance. Trembath supplies enough antecedent action that
middle/senior-school readers need not have encountered The Tuesday Cafe,
although most adolescents unfamiliar with the earlier book will likely
seek it out. Highly recommended.