The Sledding Hill
Chris Crutcher
 The novel is narrated by Billy Bartholomew, the best friend of the protagonist, Eddie Proffit, as Eddie struggles not only with Billy’s recent death, but that of his father as well. An intelligent boy who is seemingly afflicted with ADHD, Eddie cannot stop talking until he is confronted with these two sudden deaths. The only way he can cope with these tragedies, then, is to stop talking entirely. Eddie’s mother seeks solace in the local Red Brick Church, an evangelical church run by the Reverend Tarter, who is a teacher at the local high school. Though his mother wants him to join the church, Eddie is disgusted by Tarter’s bigotry, and finds little help among his peers until his high school English class starts to read the fictional novel Warren Peece by Chris Crutcher. Tarter is horrified that high school students would be allowed to read a novel that is full of what he terms “bad language” and homosexual characters. This propels a challenge from Tarter’s church board to the school to get the novel removed from the curriculum. Eddie begins talking again when he testifies in front of the Red Brick Church announcing he will not only not join the church, but will also speak in favor of Warren Peece at the school board meeting. A misinterpretation of his testimony compels the church members to have Eddie placed into a mental health facility supposedly because Eddie thinks he is Jesus Christ. Crutcher places himself in the novel’s climax as a speaker at the board meeting on the removal of the book.