Sometimes fictions appeal is its ability to carry us to worlds known and unknown giving us an escape from the boredom or pressures of daily life. At other times, fiction is at its very best when it takes us to territories we know intimately. It provides us with a mirror, giving us insight into our own lives and takes us back to our own past and uncovers deeply buried conflicts and desires long forgotten. This is what Dean Arnold the main character of Lickety-Split does for the reader. It is through his character that the reader can connect with his past. Through a brilliant character portrayal, Schrempp a first time author, manages to illuminate our own past and take us to areas long buried in our consciousness. Areas many of us would like to relive or in some cases hope to forget.
Dean Arnold lives on a farm in Northeastern Nebraska with his parents and two brothers. Although the setting of this character driven novel is in the early 50s the story is timeless. Dean spends a great deal of time and nervous energy coping with a dominating alcoholic father, the fear of a depraved school bully, and the baffling experience of a blossoming first love. The latter, resides mostly in his imagination.
To escape reality Dean finds solace in a giant sycamore tree on highway 20 where he watches traffic heading east to Chicago and west to California. It is here where his imagination sores and all his conflicts dissolve temporarily. The passing humanity on Highway 20 gives him hope and a vision for a better existence.
When his whiskey-drinking father decides to sell the farm to buy Beckers Bar in Wynot, his world is driven deeper into chaos. The bizarre characters he meets in the Bar alter his attitude and give him experiences with the seamy side of life. Here, in a strange way, he finds the relief he desires. He learns that alcohol can give him temporary relief but he only falls deeper into trouble. Salvation comes from a boxer turned priest at the local Catholic Church where Dean is a mass server. Father Logue takes him under his wing and begins to teach him basic lessons in boxing to give him a sense of self-esteem that he hopes will build the confidence he lacks and a belief that happiness and pride come from within one’s self.
Just as Dean’s confidence begins to build he accidentally discovers a dark and heinous secret in the priest, the one man he was just beginning to trust. This discovery comes just about the time his younger brother Ernie dies of leukemia. Although leukemia was the disease that killed him it was pneumonia that brought it on. Two weeks prior to his death, Dean had taken Ernie on a motorcycle ride in the cool morning air. His mother, Elizabeth, out of sadness at the loss of her beautiful son blames part of his death on Dean. This final disgrace is the last straw for Dean.
When school gets out for the summer Dean feels he needs to escape. His dad is consumed with keeping the bar business going (with the death of her beloved son his wife stopped cooking meals for customers) and the death of Ernie. These circumstances give Dean the power he needs to make some plans.
A visit to his sycamore tree gives him a solution. He knows what he has to do.
Schrempp allows his readers, through Dean to explore what can happen when desperation in its darkest form gives way to solutions that can be lived with and once found give us hope and a measure of joy.
