Raising the Shades - Hardcover

Wilhelm, Doug

3.8

5 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374361789 ISBN 13: 9780374361785

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 2001

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Casey needs a way out of the dark

Ever since his mother fled the scene, thirteen-year-old Casey has taken over her role: cooking, cleaning, and looking after his father when he's "sick." In denial about his father's secret drinking and drug problem, Casey is increasingly isolated, angry, and overwhelmed. But Dad's addiction isn't as secret as Casey thinks, as he learns when his aunt announces that an intervention is in the works. Casey is conflicted. He wants to help save his father, the person he loves most in the world, but he doesn't want to betray him.

In this powerful novel, Doug Wilhelm shows how denial can cut both ways, as Casey stops overriding his own feelings and discovers his own way toward confronting his father directly, face-to-face, for the first time.

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About the Author:

Doug Wilhelm is the author of several books for young adults. He lives with his son in Rutland, Vermont.

From Publishers Weekly:

Through the eyes of seventh-grade narrator Casey, readers get a clear-eyed view of what it is like to live with an alcoholic. The 13-year-old has been taking care of his father since his mother and sister moved out. When his aunt suggests an intervention, Casey begins to understand that his father's drinking problem is more than he can handle. While Wilhelm (Gunfire at Gettysburg) does not cover new territory, the characters and their interactions are often achingly realistic. The exchanges between Casey and his inconsistent father are especially convincing; he's either raging at his son or trying to buddy up with him. The author reveals silent stretches as convincing as any dialogue, as in one particularly poignant scene, when Casey's dad barbecues spare ribs after embarrassing him at a football game: "There was this intense, desperate energy he was putting out, like a force field: Don't talk about it... just make it okay." Other adult characters, from his well-intentioned but awkward aunt to an offbeat interventionist, are equally believable. And Casey's likable peers introduce flickers of humor and levity: his best friend, Oscar, and Tara, a classmate who befriends Casey and confides in him about losing her own mother to addiction. It's through Tara that Casey finally decides that, whether or not he participates in the intervention, he must find a way to tell his dad what he feels. Ages 10-up.

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