One thing I find endlessly interesting about Gantos-the-writer and Gantos-the-character is how entwined the voices are. His Jack-character doesn't quite sound like a boy...but he sure doesn't sound like a man, either.
Sure, I have to mention somewhere the semi-autobiographical nature of Dead End. So you'd think this book would have the annoying sound* of a grownup narrating from his remembered childhood---but it doesn't. It sounds mostly like a child, but sometimes not: maybe like a child with a couple of seeds of adulthood already starting to grow.
Those adultish seeds nearly get out of hand there on the last page,** but Gantos-the-writer manages to land the book's narrative-voice airplane mostly on the runway***. So, bravo! to Norvelt and Jack Gantos, both man and boy.
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*The sound is something between a self-aware whiny and the bleat of one who thinks that childhood before the deluge of social media was just swell.
**The reader gets an unexpected snootful of moral rectitude. Fortunately, Dad saves the day.
***Mixed metaphors are best served cold.
