The Dust Bubble is a brilliant novel, full of family, immediate and extended, love, hope and nostalgia. It's about a community pulling together with a common goal; guiding a fatherless boy through childhood into manhood.
The story is set in the 70's when neighborhoods were precincts of extended families. There was an axiom in place then, taken from an African proverb, which said, 'It takes a village to raise a child.'
However, it was true then, like now, the villagers may have been pimps, whores, thieves, or junkies to the outside world, but to the individuals in the hood they were fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles, sisters and brothers.
The 'Dust Bubble' is a coming-of-age story of a boy who stumbled into the very real machinery of the adult world, and yet each of the miscreants he encounters and befriends tries to shield him from their own deviant, socially accepted behaviors. But Chicken Bones is aspiring to be a writer and gathering stories for his future books, a good kid doing positive things, so who could refuse to answer his many questions. Little does anyone know that the more he learns about their adult world, the harder it becomes to not plug into a system, and not participate in one of its many activities. Chicken is soon privy to more than anyone would have expected and is so close to the danger that he can sometimes taste the blood in his mouth.