Written by John McNally
The late 70s/early 80s is the golden age of my childhood. It’s the time of The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s the time of The Smurfs, Challenge of the Super Friends, and The Amazing Spiderman. An era of All in the Family, MASH, Happy Days and Three’s Company. When brown, beige and green were slowly giving way to big, brash primary colours, and big, brash personalities.
It’s a nostalgia for a time and place I lived through in the sunny years of my childhood…and as I write this, I’ve just been informed it’s the 25th anniversary of the release of Michael Jackson’s monster-hit Thriller. 
NOW I feel old…
The first two-thirds of The Book of Ralph luxuriate in this golden-age. So many people think that the Leave It to Beaver/antiseptic 1950s was the default childhood by which everything is measured…but that generation has given way to those who grew up in a mad world of polyester, corduroy, wide lapels, and shag carpet. The smells and sounds of this time permeate the book, and whisk anyone between the ages of 30 and 40 back to halcyon days of suburban innocence.
But background colour only works if the plot is up to the job, and the story of a young, straight-arrow 8th grader Hank Boyd falling into the twisted sphere of the not-quite-there Ralph is worthy of Mark Twain. Ralph isn’t dangerous…he’s just the eye of a chaotic storm – a hurricane untethered to any rational course. The boys’ hijinks are hilarious, uproarious, and so very realistic of what boys of that time could get up to with the right amount of imagination.
But much of this goodwill and nostalgic entertainment falls flat in the final third of the novel. Set in the present day, Hank turns out to be an educated man who has found little success and satisfaction in his life. Meanwhile, Ralph turns out to be a surprising success…yet as loopy & lazy as he always was…and this time, Hank’s identity-confused sister is his new partner in crime…and life partner!
Aside from being less entertaining that the previous section, this part of the novel seems to be saying that an educated, professional life isn’t as worthy as a shady, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants existence. I’m not sure if this is the author’s successful subversion of expectations, or his own disturbing philosophy…but the prose doesn’t quite sell the end result, no matter which point of view is correct. It’s disconcerting – even disappointing – in its quest to somehow paint the protagonist as a loser in life, compared to his more flaky cohorts.
The Book of Ralph had me wrapped in a warm glow of good-natured mellowness for most of its length – content to re-live a specific time and place, surrounded by the soft-focused haze of half-forgotten, golden suburban memories. But this approach is squandered in its final act, leaving an unsatisfying aftertaste to what should have been a sumptuous TV dinner of comfort food.
