On a September night in 1971, a few days after getting busted for
dropping acid, a sixteen-year-old curls up in the corner of her ratty
bedroom and begins to write.
Now the truth can finally be revealed about the mysterious day long ago
when the authorities found a child, calmly walking in the boiling
desert, covered with blood.
The girl is Roberta Rohbeson, and her rant against a world bounded by
"the cruddy top bedroom of a cruddy rental house on a very cruddy mud
road" soon becomes a detailed account of another story, one that she has
kept silent since she was eleven.
Darkly funny and resonant with humanity, Cruddy, masterfully
intertwines Roberta's stories -- part Easy Rider and part bipolar
Wizard of Oz. These stories, the backbone of Roberta's short life,
include a one-way trip across America fueled by revenge and greed and a
vivid cast of characters, starring Roberta's dangerous father, the
owners of the Knocking Hammer Bar-cum-slaughterhouse, and runaway
adolescents. With a teenager's eye for freakish detail and a nervous
ability to make the most horrible scenes seem hilarious, Cruddy is a
stunning achievement.