The Crying Jesus

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.

Like Budge Wilson’s The Leaving, R.P. MacIntyre’s second collection
of short stories, only one of which has been previously published, will
find an audience among both older high-school students and adults. Set
largely in rural areas and in the present, the 11 stories are told from
the perspectives of young adults, only three of whom are female. The
focus is more on character than on plot as MacIntyre’s adolescents
confront various challenges on the road to adulthood.

“The Code” takes readers into the testosterone-rich world of junior
hockey in which NHL wannabes live by a code of morality alien to
outsiders. “Ways of Killing Pepper” and “Eating with the Dead”
feature adolescent–parent relationships, while “Body Parts,”
“The Crying Jesus,” “Cursing Shane,” and “Mona with the White
Lips” explore the confusing (and overlapping) domains of romance and
sex. Adolescents who have been the target of their peers’ jibes will
revel in the protagonist’s revenge in “Sleeping in the Nude.” In
“Hitler’s Hands,” a World War II ghost haunts a contemporary
racist skinhead. The final two stories, “The Apprentice” and “The
Front Steps,” are linked by some shared characters.

Recommended for school and public library young-adult collections.