At the moment, the only thing I know about Randall Wright is that he has published at least one book. For all I know, he could be the pen-name of a group of bored housewives . . . not that there’s anything wrong with that. From the Macmillan website, though, he appears to be just one man who lives in Utah. Barnes & Noble has informed me that he’s written three books for young readers; the other two are called A Hundred Days from Home and The Silver Penny. He apparently does not live in a castle, and longs for a silver penny of his own. In any case, he’s one of the rare authors these days without a personal website.

Hunchback tells the tale of one Hodge, who is about thirteen years old and possessed of the spinal deformity generally referred to as a ‘hunchback.’ (As astute readers may have already guessed.) He lives in a general pseudo-English medieval world, where he is the son of the (deceased) fletcher and does general labor around the castle (of Lord Selden). One day, a letter arrives — the royal prince (heir) is coming to visit! The whole castle is abuzz, but when the prince gets there, he seems confined to his own rooms. However, Hodge goes to serve him, and the prince speaks with him. Nothing seems to be wrong; what’s happening, and why is the prince virtually a prisoner?

This is sort of an odd book. It’s a little bleak. Hodge doesn’t exactly have a miserable life, but he’s covered in excrement of various kinds, bugs, and animal fat and ashes before the first 50 pages of the book are finished. I mean, generally speaking, he only has a couple of tormentors; while his parents are dead, he seems to be a simple sort, and the fact that he works hard (but not to excess) doesn’t bother him as much as it could. While most of us would consider this to be a rather lousy existence (pun intended), he seems to be okay with it. I don’t know if Mr. Wright had any sort of statement he was trying to make with Hodge’s life, but I do think the character’s simplicity is intended. The simplicity is, of course, meant to underscore Hodge’s innate heroism.

Of course, Hodge’s innate heroism is mostly related to tangible things. He doesn’t want the prince to die, at first, and then later he wants to find his brother. These are simple goals; at one point, however, he does decide to give a piece of important information to the king. That, of course, is heroic . . . perhaps. Heroic in the sense of ‘a good, dangerous thing to do that he was afraid of doing but did anyway’, but isn’t that what happens quite often? Of course, he is shown over and over to be a genuinely good person, both through his actions and through the statements of other people. I bought it, but I still didn’t quite like him or empathize with him. He seemed somewhat flat. I understand he’s uneducated, but he had no elements to his character other than his deformity, his love for his brother, and his desire to serve the prince.

I liked the two major female characters more than I liked Hodge, although there were some odd dynamics going there, too. Jayne is a maid of some sort, and she is dating Tom, Hodge’s main tormentor. It was vaguely implied that she might be a victim of his abuse as well. The other main female is the chef; she’s large and in charge of mainly everything. Again, this is another stereotype of a woman: the one in the kitchen who runs everything behind the scenes. I understand that in a medieval setting, there weren’t that many choices for women in general, but perhaps I wanted something a little less stuffed with tropes.

Overall I disliked more of this book than I thought upon finishing it. It was not an uplifting read; the author can certainly write and the plot was decent enough (I didn’t guess what was going to happen before the end), but a lot of his ideas and characters bothered me. It’s probably a ‘boy’ book, being preoccupied with war and death and honor and nobility and having very few female characters, but I rarely like to stereotype too firmly. It just didn’t appeal to me on very many levels. Its quality is fairly high, but I don’t know that I’d seek out any more of Mr. Wright’s novels. 4/5 stars for quality, but only 2/5 for enjoyment.