The Crazy Horse Electric Game by Chris Crutcher

First published: 1987

Subjects: Death, family, friendship, health and illness, and sports

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Social realism

Time of work: The late 1980’s

Recommended Ages: 13-18

Locale: Coho, a small Montana town, and a private school in Oakland, California

Principal Characters:

• Willie Weaver, a seventeen-year-old golden boy athlete who tries to come to grips with a debilitating handicap
• Jenny Blackburn, a seventeen-year-old beautiful athlete who is Willie’s best friend as well as his girlfriend
• Johnny Rivers, a seventeen-year-old with a rapier-like wit who plays baseball with Willie and who is liked by everyone
• Will Weaver, Sr., Willie’s father, who has a stubborn streak and who attempts to live his life through Willie
• Lacey Casteel, a kind-hearted pimp in Oakland who gives Willie a place to live
• Lisa, a dedicated physical education teacher who helps Willie overcome his handicap through visualization and hard work
• Sammy, a martial arts teacher who shows Willie how to unify his mind and body in order to defend himself

Form and Content

Using a seventeen-year-old golden boy athlete, Chris Crutcher weaves a realistic story about how fate rules life in The Crazy Horse Electric Game. The novel follows Willie Weaver from the height of his popularity as a baseball hero, which ends in a tragic boating accident, through the rebuilding of his life in Oakland, California, at the One More Last Chance High School. Crutcher uses short chapters, an easy-to-follow plot, strong characterization, and foreshadowing to hook and maintain the reader’s interest. The third-person narration allows the reader to see inside the minds of the characters, feeling their emotions and drawing the reader into the nightmare that has become reality for Willie.

The game is a watershed event in Willie Weaver’s life. His controlled pitching and awesome final catch take the championship away from the three-time winning team, Crazy Horse Electric. He becomes the star player for Sampson Floral and the town hero. In the blink of an eye, however, Willie’s life and the lives of his friends and family change forever. A water skiing accident leaves the left side of Willie’s body paralyzed, impairing his speech and movement.

Lost in a world that he no longer knows, in a body that he no longer controls, Willie struggles to overcome his confusion and frustration by trying to play racquetball, managing the girls’ basketball team, talking to a psychologist, participating in speech therapy, and going out with friends. The decisions that he makes are based on his emotions and have disastrous consequences. He simply cannot find the strength to face what his life has become.

Arriving home from school one afternoon, Willie hears his parents arguing and comparing his accident to his baby sister’s death six years earlier from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). When Willie hears his father say, “It would have been better if he would have drowned,” he realizes that he will not be able to overcome his disability in Coho. Willie packs a few things, takes some money, and boards the first Greyhound bus headed west, disappearing from the life that he always knew.

After changing buses several times to avoid being found, Willie ends up on the seedy side of Oakland, California. He has been beaten, robbed, and left for dead when a bus driver, Lacey Casteel, picks him up and buys him something to eat. Willie tells Lacey of his trouble, and Lacey offers him a place to stay for the night. Willie, broke and beaten, knows that Lacey is his only hope for survival and offers to work for him in exchange for room and board. Lacey agrees, and Willie soon realizes that his new acquaintance is a pimp who drives a bus as a cover. When they become friends, Lacey tells Willie about the son that he almost beat to death, leaving him retarded and living in an institution. Together, Lacey and Willie make great strides to heal their past hurts and cope with the pain of loss.

Lacey insists that Willie go to One More Last Chance High School, an alternative school for students with problems, which proves to be what Willie needs to accept himself and overcome the effects of his tragic accident. The people whom Willie meets and the difficult situations that he encounters there help him change his life by channeling his fear and anger into his rehabilitation.

After graduation, Willie returns home a whole person, ready to deal with the demons of his past. His best friend Johnny welcomes him with open arms and invites Willie to stay with him. Willie finds his father living in a rented room drinking himself to death and his mother remarried. His father gives him the Harley Davidson motorcycle that they used to ride together, and Willie rides back to Oakland.

Critical Context

The Crazy Horse Electric Game was the third book that Chris Crutcher published in a four-year period. His novels for young adults are about troubled teenagers with heartbreaking problems, and Crutcher deals with them in a realistic fashion; therefore, his books do not have “happily ever after” endings. His novels satisfy a need in young adult literature for stories with strong male characters, and the fact that his characters are athletes is a draw to often-reluctant male readers.

Crutcher confronts serious, controversial problems head on in his novels about teenagers who are coming-of-age. Running Loose (1983) deals with racial prejudice and the strength that one must have to stand up for personal beliefs. Stotan (1986) confronts the issue of physical abuse and white supremacist groups. Chinese Handcuffs (1989) breaks the silence on sexual abuse and suicide. Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes (1993) brings to the light the teenagers who are not welcomed by the society in which they live. Ironman (1994) allows the reader to see how anger and control can shape lives. Crutcher’s characters deal with reality in a sensitive, honest manner, learning to make the best of a bad situation.