Bones on Black Spruce Mountain

David Budbill (1940-2016) wrote ten books of poetry, eight plays, an opera, two novels, and a short story collection. Back in 1984, when I was just eight years old, his Bantam-Skylark paperback Bones on Black Spruce Mountain (1978) miraculously found its way into my mother's shopping cart at our local Hill's Department Store. I'm sure I had read other books prior to this one, but my most vivid memory is this paperback being my first actual book purchase. My mother was skeptical about the title and colorful cover (Ramon Gonzalez Vicente), but she allowed me to buy it with my allowance money. Thank God she never read the three curse words inside. Books may have been banned during my childhood, and Paperback Warrior would have never come to fruition. 

At the time, I never realized that Bones on Black Spruce Mountain was a novel featuring characters that appeared in Budbill's short story collection, Snowshoe Trek to Otter River (1976). In the collection, 12-year-old buddies Seth and Daniel take part in three short wilderness tales. In the novel, Seth and Daniel are now 13 years of age and want to tackle a long camping trip into a nearby mountain range. Seth and Daniel convince their parents to allow them a full week alone in the wilderness hiking. When I was their age, my parents wouldn't allow me to find my way to the Sunday School class at church without chaperoning. These kids are off in the wild for a week with no supervision!

There are rumors that a young orphan boy ran away from his abusive parents and died on the mountain. Supposedly, his bones are resting in a cave on top of Black Spruce Mountain. The two boys want to locate the bones...because that's just what young boys do. Stand By Me, anyone?

At 134 pages, Bones on Black Spruce Mountain isn't the rowdy action-adventure novel that I remember. In fact, it's a really bizarre psychological character study about Daniel adjusting to his adopted parents and coming to grips with his horrific childhood bouncing between orphanages and foster families. Daniel is clearly suffering some PTSD, and gaslights Seth often. Their emotional friendship is challenging, and often the two nearly come to blows. Daniel's quest to find the boy's bones is paramount to his own self-discovery and healing from abandonment.

Bones on Black Spruce Mountain is way heavier than any juvenile fiction paperback I've experienced. Proceed with caution; it's a slippery slope to climb. Get it HERE.