Chappie is a punked-out teenager rejected by his mother and abusive stepfather. Out of school and in trouble with the police, he drifts through crash pads, doper squats, and malls until he finally settles in an abandoned school bus with Rose, a seven-year-old child, and I-Man, an exiled Rastafarian who will dramatically change his life. Together they begin an amazing journey...

Russell Banks' profile page

"Magnificent... I believed every word of it, forgot I was reading fiction. Russell Banks has created a story that is both shattering and reassuring, and narrator, Bone, who will stay with me for the rest of my life."
—Roddy Doyle
"The story, once started, is impossible to put down. A harrowing but funny tale about the indomitability of youth in a society which offers them little."
—Toronto Sun
“Russell Banks is a novelist of masterful power and range.”
—The Gazette (Montreal)

“A work of great humanity and empathy.”
—Maclean’s

“Poignant.... This is a beautifully crafted novel that stretches the imagination and rethinks those family values that are too often taken for granted and too often wrong.”
—The Financial Post

“Readers familiar with the fiction of Russell Banks will recognize in Rule of the Bone his signature, the ability to render damaged lives honestly and artfully.... It’s very real and it makes us feel suddenly very alive.”
—The Globe and Mail
"Of the many writers working in the great tradition today, one of the best is Russell Banks... Intoxicating and unsparing, Rule of the Bone is a romance for a world fast running out of room for childhood."
—The New York Times Book Review