Darkly funny, unapologetically tender, and unexpectedly moving…
Set against the dust and desperation of backwater Texas, Northcutt’s blistering novel delivers a raw, unvarnished portrait of adolescence. In the sweltering summer of 1969, the town of Dix Knob, Texas, braces for its annual treasure festival. For Teddy Nutscalder and his friends Mickey and Tommy. it’s the backdrop to something far more dangerous, a plan to protect Missy Turnbow, a rich girl with a secret, from her violent, well-connected stepfather. Used to surviving on scraps, the boys find refuge in each other and in a forgotten speakeasy buried beneath a condemned building. But when gold resurfaces and bullets fly, childhood ends. Teddy must decide who he is, and what he’s willing to become.
The novel opens with blood and humiliation. Teddy’s face is slammed into gravel by a bully whose nickname he invented. It’s a small moment in a novel brimming with big ones. Cruelty often masks vulnerability, and comedy erupts in the bleakest spaces. Northcutt’s voice, through Teddy, is lewd, abrasive, and wildly funny, but never careless. He writes like someone unafraid to dig deep into rot and rust, then pull out something valuable (if not beautiful, at least undeniable). The prose is loud and unrepentant. There’s nothing sanitized here. Kids piss themselves, strip club siblings flirt, and bar owners hoard trivia. But the mess is the point. Beneath the humor and profanity is a raw, unflinching look at survival in a place where nothing is handed to you, not even hope.
The plot spirals outward. Yet it always anchors itself in Teddy’s inner world. His crush on Missy is part longing, part recognition. She’s broken too, just in finer clothes. Their connection is awkward, dark, and tender. Around them, a town full of lost adults either ignores or exploits its kids. Some characters, like Rick or Mickey’s sister Brandy, skate the line between tragic and absurd with surprising grace. Even as the story leans into wild twists, it never loses its emotional weight. The boys’ obsession with a sci-fi serial mirrors their own dreams of escape, justice, and transformation. Their banter is full of bravado, but their loyalty is real.
Fans of The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and The Body by Stephen King will recognize the hunger and heartbreak here. But The Cusser Club isn’t imitating those works. It’s expanding the territory they claimed. It offers no promises of escape, but insists that friendship, even in its crudest form, is its own kind of redemption.
A raw, sharp, and unforgettable coming-of-age story about loyalty, trauma, and teenage defiance.
BookBaby
Pub date February 7, 2024
ISBN 979-8350933062
Price $18.99 (USD) Paperback, $1.99 Kindle edition
