In
STUCK IN NEUTRAL, Terry
Trueman's 2001 award-winning novel, he developed a most unlikely
narrator: Shawn, a young man whose body is incapacitated by severe
cerebral palsy, but whose mind is more engaged than anyone would
have imagined. Now, Trueman gives Shawn's older brother Paul a
voice in the companion novel CRUISE CONTROL.

Paul is pretty much the polar opposite of Shawn: he is popular,
gifted, a jock who can trust his body to perform at the highest
level. He's also deeply angry, with a quick temper and a tendency
to fly off the handle. Much of Paul's anger is directed at his
father, a writer who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning poem about
Shawn after he left the family, and now seems to use Shawn mostly
for photo ops and talk show appearances. Paul, who deeply loves his
brother (even though he calls him a "veg"), resents his father for
abandoning him and for escaping the day-to-day realities of living
with a profoundly disabled family member.

CRUISE CONTROL is sometimes a disturbing book, as when the reader
is taken into Paul's head as he beats up a complete stranger, or
when Paul and his equally angry friend Tim drive drunk. Although
STUCK IN NEUTRAL was perhaps a more powerful book, in part because
of its unusual and surprising narrator, CRUISE CONTROL is still a
complex and moving portrayal, even with its more conventional main
character. Although each novel can stand on its own merits, STUCK
IN NEUTRAL and CRUISE CONTROL gain strength when read together, as
they form a more complete portrait of a family dealing with the
daily heartbreak of Shawn's disability.

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