Gypsy Davey

by Chris Lynch

Overview

A boy triumphs over his abusive environment in this raw and gripping story from National Book Award finalist Chris Lynch.

Davey’s had to grow up fast in order to get away—away from his beautiful mother, who loves him but can’t take care of him; away from his charismatic but reckless father, who loves him too, but can’t commit; and away from the people who look at him strangely because he’s not like them. The only constant in his life has been his sister, Joanne. She’s fed him, protected him, and taken care of him ever since she was seven and he was two.

Now Jo, still a teenager, has a baby herself, and it’s Davey’s turn to take care of someone, to offer love like he’s never known before.

National Book Award finalist Chris Lynch “describes in unflinching detail a squalid, urban scene” in this “meticulously crafted” novel with “evocative and lyrical prose” (Publishers Weekly).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781442472877
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Publication date:	03/04/2014
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
Lexile:	1030L (what's this?)
File size:	5 MB
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Chris Lynch is the award-winning author of several highly acclaimed young adult novels, including Printz Honor Book Freewill, Iceman, Gypsy Davey, and Shadow Boxer—all ALA Best Books for Young Adults—as well as Killing Time in Crystal City, Little Blue Lies, Pieces, Kill Switch, Angry Young Man, and Inexcusable, which was a National Book Award finalist and the recipient of six starred reviews. Chris is the author of middle grade novel Walkin’ the Dog. He holds an MA from the writing program at Emerson College. He teaches in the creative writing MFA program at Lesley University. He lives in Boston and in Scotland.

Read an Excerpt

1. Two Too Many TWO TOO MANY
My sister Joanne has a baby and sometimes after school I go over there and I help her with it and she lets me have a glass of wine and then I start to think of things.

Things like that I’m really good with babies even though I’m only twelve and I can think of no reason why I should be after all good with babies since I don’t have any of my own but I sure would like to. Better than my sister is with her own baby that’s for sure though I don’t actually mean to be mean because she’s nice to me some of the time and it’s hard for her and I fully understand that. She’s only seventeen herself but her old man she calls him is thirty which is why there’s always a glass of wine around although from what I can see the old man himself ain’t. Around that is.

Sometimes my sister goes out right away when I come over and comes back hours later when me and the baby Dennis are asleep. She says that Dennis is crazy because he’s loud and he’s active and he doesn’t listen but then he stops still and stares for almost ever and he makes a lot of sounds that are nothing at all like words and he moves funny sometimes more like a praying mantis than like a big baby boy and that all this is why little Dennis and me get along so good is what she says because we’re both screwed she says. And that’s why she has to leave sometimes.

But I don’t see the problem so much to be honest and I tell my sister so. She says I can’t see it because I’m a retard myself is what she says when she’s not feeling so nice or just that Davey you don’t understand things very well is what she says when she’s better.

But I can do things. I can change Dennis’s diaper when he needs it, and I know when he needs it. I even like it doing the changing doing the feeding like it when my sister leaves us alone because I like being the one in charge for a change. I am really responsible and I don’t think my sister changes Dennis often enough because of what I see sometimes on his little bum. Like boils. I can’t tell my sister something like that because I told her once told her after she came home from a long long time when she was out of the house. And she said how dare you to me and she hit me slapped me real hard. Then she stared at me and thought about it and just said how dare you again and hit me real hard on the same part of my face again even though I’m bigger than she is by a lot. But I couldn’t do nothing about it of course because I couldn’t. Except cry. I could cry and I did just with the water part and no sound coming out of me. And I turned so little Dennis couldn’t see because he looks up to me admires me and he’s real curious and kept stretching his neck to try to see me. So now I just wipe the cream on him all the time and I blow lightly on the red parts of his bottom to cool him because it looks hot.

My sister says so what to all this because she did it all for me when I was little like our brother Gary who doesn’t live around here anymore did for her because she says Mom had two kids too many than she could handle. And so I owe somebody.

What People are Saying About This

Kirkus Reviews

"Penetrating."

Reading Group Guide

Introduction:

Gypsy Davey is Chris Lynch's highly acclaimed novel about one boy's ultimately triumphant coming of age in the face of loneliness and terrible neglect from his family. By age twelve, Davey has had his share of problems. For his entire existence he has lived with a mother who loves him, but refuses to learn how to be a parent to him; a charismatic but reckless father who can't seem to commit to his family; and a sister who had to become his real mother when she was seven years old. Alternately adored and abused by his older sister, Davey grows up with the passionate conviction that somehow his life should be better than it is.

And when Joanne, now a seventeen year old mother herself, seems destined to repeat the mistakes of their mother with her newborn son, Davey is determined to do everything he can to spare his nephew from the harsh, desperate, and lonely childhood he himself has had.

Told in Davey's own voice alternating with revealing family vignettes, Lynch's narrative is piercing, enraging and ultimately uplifting—a beautifully written tour de force about coming to terms with this cycle and trying to rise above it.

Questions For Discussion:

1. At the close of the novel, Davey says that he's going to "find somebody who's gonna love me and we're gonna have some babies and I'm gonna love 'em like hell to pieces like nobody ever loved babies before" (p. 179). Do you think that Davey has the potential to break the pattern of abuse in his family, and will treat a child differently than Lois and Joanne have? From whom does Davey learn to be so caring and loving? What evidence do wehave that Davey is, in fact, a competent care-giver? Would Davey be a good father?
2. Davey has several means of temporary escape from his problems. He explains that his bike changes him "more than anything" and allows him to be "the kind of me the one I like better" (p. 30). Television also becomes an escape vehicle for Davey. Do these distractions allow Jo and Lois to escape from their responsibilities? Is escape good?
3. How and when do Jo and Lois express their love for Davey? What do other characters in the novel think of Davey? What kind of impression does Davey give?
4. Lester, the streetwise drug dealer, becomes someone Davey can count on, "the person who never really chased [Davey] off" (p. 94). What is the nature of Davey's relationship to Lester—the character who nicknames him Gypsy Davey? Why is it difficult for Davey to leave the street corner, even though he is scared, when he learns that Lester will not be returning (p. 146)? You may wish to continue this discussion by looking at the relationships that Joanne and Davey have with other characters, including the members of Joanne's gang, even the shoemaker Vadala.
5. Why is it appropriate that Davey is the photographer at Joanne's wedding? What is the significance of Davey's watching the wedding through a camera lens? What do you make of Joanne's and Lois's numerous requests to have their picture taken?
6. Readers of the novel know that Davey is a loner. But is he the loneliest character in the story?
7. In Gypsy Davey, Chris Lynch weaves chapters of Davey's insights, told in a stream-of-consciousness-style first person, into a third person narrative of the history of Davey's family. Why do you think Lynch chooses a nontraditional structure for the novel? How do Davey's narrations add to the story?
8. Throughout the novel, abusive occurrences (like the scene at the roast beef restaurant in the "Big Now" chapter, and the scene in which Lois takes Davey to the bar) are narrated in the same tone as the sporadic signs of a more traditional, caring parenthood (the pancake breakfast, the wedding). Is abuse somehow intertwined with love for Davey?
9. How does Jo's method of raising her baby differ from Lois's? How does Jo's treatment of her baby differ from her treatment of Davey? Do these two characters treat Davey in the same way? How do the characters of Jo and Lois allow Lynch to comment on the issues of abuse and neglect?
10. Discuss the significance of the Davey's nickname, the book's title. Is Davey a gypsy? Does the significance of the nickname change as the novel progresses?

About The Author:

Chris Lynch was a featured author in Publishers Weekly's "Flying Starts" for his first novel, Shadow Boxer. His other novels--including Ice Man, Slot Machine, and the Blue-Eyed Son series--have all garnered critical acclaim and received numerous prestigious awards.

Editorial Reviews

There is nothing conventional about Lynch's third and best novel. This tight, taut novel bounces back between slow-witted Davey's thoughts and his family's sad story. Oddly refreshing.

Washington Post

Lynch's "Shadow Boxer" (1993) and "Iceman" can easily be labeled as coming-of-age novels. Such categorizing isn't quite as accurate for his latest, which has the distinct feel of adult fiction. Although filtered, in part, through the eyes of a young, "retarded" boy, Davey (2 years old at the outset and 12 at the close), the book is much more than a growing-up story. In fact, it's the wrangling within Davey's dysfunctional family, particularly between his needy, irresponsible mother, Lois, and his angry sister, Joanne, that holds readers fast. Davey, alternately loved and emotionally abused, is simply caught between the woman and the girl, a catalyst and an observer of their vitriolic relationship. That his mother and sister actually love him in their odd, selfish ways helps Davey develop an innate sense of the way things ought to be for his baby nephew, Dennis. His devotion to the child, whom he loves "like nobody ever loved babies before," is his way of speaking out against his own dreadful home life. Many questions go unanswered in the story, the plot is episodic, awkwardly so at times, and Davey's occasional stream-of-consciousness interjections seem forced. Yet the characters are finely drawn, and Lynch creates some fascinating parallels between Lois and Joanne who at the outset, seem so different. The depiction of Davey's surroundings is harsh and hauntingly realistic (casual sex, alcohol abuse, and street language are givens); loneliness and frustration seem, at first glance, the only things people can count on. It's Davey's surprising, artless ability to rise above it all and keep on going that proves first impressions wrong.

Stephanie Zvirin