The One-in-a-Million Boy

Ona Vitkus is 104 years old and something of a loner. Narrator Chris Ciulla adopts a slight accent to illustrate her Lithuanian roots and adds a slight tremulousness to his timbre so that Ona sounds old but still spry and spirited. Ona forms a friendship with an 11-year-old Boy Scout who is assigned to do chores on her property. The boy is obsessed with Guinness records and talks her into trying to become the oldest person in the world. Ciulla's open performance and slightly hurried pacing for the boy perfectly translate his unfiltered but sweet nature. After the boy dies, his father, Quinn, an itinerant musician, takes over the chores. Ona and Quinn's unlikely bond helps Quinn understand his unusual son. Quinn didn't always fulfill his parental responsibilities but Ciulla makes his fundamental decency and kindness clear to the listener. A.B. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

February 22, 2016
Wood never names the 11-year-old boy at the center of her bittersweet new novel; he is referred to as “the boy” from the start. This idiosyncratic and earnest list-making boy without friends dies as strangely—“the first symptom is usually death”—as he lived. His father, an itinerant guitarist named Quinn, decides to finish earning the child’s Boy Scouts badge by doing yard work for the 104-year-old Ona Vitkus. This penance for being an absentee father turns into something even greater as he and his grief-stricken twice-ex-wife take up the boy’s hope for Ona to set a world record as the oldest licensed driver. The author (Any Bitter Thing) reveals the prickly old woman’s life story, beginning in Lithuania, through the boy’s 10-part recorded interview with her; Ona slowly comes to realize what a gift his questions were, while the reader gains understanding into her character. Wood maintains the boy’s unknowability by allowing just one (heartrending) scene from his point of view, which walks a thin line between sweet and saccharine, resulting in a devastating story. Agent: Gail Hochman, Brandt & Hochman Literary.