Head Case (review)

All that's left of Frank Marder is a head, or, at least, following the car accident where his drunken driving killed his girlfriend and an elderly pedestrian, his head is the only body part the spine-injured teen can feel or move. Now he's home from the hospital, watching his parents battle over the burden of his new state, antagonizing his only remaining friend, and following the outrage over his action in the local blogosphere. This starts out sounding like a cautionary tale, but it's more a moral and personal exploration. Aronson pulls no punches in her documentation of the deprivation of Frank's state: he describes his grief over the loss of a sex life that had only just started; the constant reminders of helplessness when somebody walks away from him, forgetting he's stuck where he's put; the inability to read or to eat without assistance. The moral dimension adds emotion, as if any further were needed, and Frank's monitoring of the reaction to his own behavior, as commenters clamor to send him to jail, is a believable element in a world where the Internet has rendered eavesdropping unnecessary. While the end offers only the slightest shift to hopefulness, that limitation renders the movement believable in a way that a grander epiphany wouldn't. Daredevil readers will be made thoughtful by Frank's account, and they'll vividly imagine themselves into Frank's immobile shoes.