"People who don't shoot smack have problems too" This is one of my all time favorite young adult novels, and the reason why I'd read all of Kurt Vonnegut by the time I was 17. I read this book over & over as a young teen, but I haven't read since then and revisiting it now all these years later it is still as fresh and immediate as ever it was. ME Kerr describes young teens with such immediacy that the fact it was written in an era of mimeographs & typewriters is immaterial; Tucker, Dinky, Natalia & P. John are real, breathing people and their chief concerns back in 1972 are the same as those of teens today. I remember having thoughts and conversations just like those depicted here in the 1980s & I bet today's kids do too. That's the benefit of Kerr's ability to write such amazingly alive characters. It was interesting to me to see how much I'd remembered and how much I'd forgotten: the main heart of the book that I've carried with me all these years is the plight of Dinky, ignored by her Mrs Jellyby-esque mother who spends all her time working for charity, chiefly with drug addicts, and alternately ignores and belittles her daughter. That struggle is where the title comes from, there aren't many drugs in the book, in fact there is only really one junkie and he's a minor, comic character. But Dinky's struggle is to get the care and guidance from her parents that she desperately needs if she is to overcome her own serious problems and grow up to be the formidable woman she clearly has the potential to become. Even Dinky's cousin Natalia gets more attention from Mr & Mrs Hocker because they have cast Natalia in the role of a deservingly needy person. Tucker is our viewpoint character and the book covers the seven months after he first meets Dinky and her family. Dinky's furious despair has stayed with me for decades. I could relate to her then & I can relate to her now. But what I had forgotten, and I delighted in on this re-read, is the complex relationships and character growth of the other three main characters Tucker, Natalia & P John. P John (view spoiler)[ has similar problems to Dinky, but after a terrible fight with his father an aunt offers him the care he needs and the dramatic improvement in him over the course of the novel is a bitter counterpoint to Dinky's decline. (hide spoiler)]
I didn't like this book at all. Tucker's father has lost his job and developed an allergy to their cat, which leads to him meeting Dinky Hocker, a neighborhood girl with a bad attitude. He doesn't particularly like her, but is intrigued by her live-in cousin so he goes back to visit the cousin, Natalia, and his ex-cat. In order to date Natalia, he has to find a date for Dinky as well which leads to him introducing Dinky to P. John, who's even more annoying than she is. Dinky develops feelings for P. John and is crushed when he thinks of her as more of a weight-loss buddy. Dinky's mother doesn't approve of either boy and P. John ends up getting shipped off to boarding school. He comes back some months later thin and a socialist whereas Dinky has gotten even larger and become obsessed with her aquarium fish. When Dinky's mother wins a humanitarian award, Dinky spray-paints rumors about herself up and down the street as a cry for attention. One of my main problems with this book was the lack of plot – nothing really happens. I really liked the beginning of the book and thought that Tucker could have been an interesting character, but it never amounted to much. I didn't like Dinky. I didn't like P. John. Natalia's character wasn't very well-developed, so she seemed almost transparent. Her character seemed the most intriguing to me and I would have liked to know more. It seems like I'm one of the few people who didn't love this book, but I just don't get it. If I hadn't been assigned to read it for a class, I probably wouldn't have finished it.
Do You like book Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! (2007)?
What a book! Dinky, overweight and kind of angry about this even though she constantly eats, meets an overweight guy who is also on the fringes of school, falls in love, though they haven’t reckoned with Dinky’s controlling mother, devoted to her own cause of helping drug addicts, and failing to recognize her daughter’s own problems, but trying to control Dinky’s feelings with sarcasm and anger.But the narrator is Tucker, who falls in love with Dinky’s cousin, a girl with her own problems, and who sees too clearly these relationships, while slowly finding some way out of his shyness and some way to communicate with his new friend.Great characters, lots of humor, and a compelling read – what more would anyone want?.
—Bill
Tucker Woolf, "a male cat-lover who was also a lover of libraries," meets the title character after he is forced to adopt out his cat, Nader, because of his father's newly developed allergies. Dinky is a formidable new owner for Nader, her physical size certainly as intimidating as her raw wit, unflinching honesty (about anything other than herself), and fascination with the odd. When Dinky's cousin Natalia comes to stay with the Hocker family, Tucker finds himself using Nader as an excuse to visit the mysterious, beautiful girl. Of course, Dinky and Tucker's parents have a field day with Tucker's infatuation, something he has not yet verbalized to anyone, let alone Natalia or himself - and when Natalia agrees to go to a dance with him only if Dinky also has a date. So Tucker introduces her to P. John Knight, a wildly opinionated, right wing guy he doesn't really like - but P. John is fat, so Tucker figures the pairing will work out. Luckily for him, it does, but the dance does not go well for he and Natalia; afterward, Tucker's friendships begin to unravel.This novel presents ordinary people and their ordinary issues in a heavily extraordinary way, detailing their intricacies and inadequacies with effortless diction. Originally published in 1972, the novel may still hold its own with teens who find it today.Other notes (for class):- overt foreshadowing of Dinky's psychological issues require inference, yet are still blatant- Natalia's previous mental illness perhaps one of the first appearances in YA? - check- constantly places religious characters (Mr. and Mrs. Hocker) in negative light
—Emily
First published in 1972 the books still feels relevant today forty-two years later. The characters, voice and dialog all feel real, believable and honest. I've been aware of this book since I was a teen. I don't know why, when I was reading S.E. Hinton and other teen angst novels that I passed over 'Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack!' Maybe it was the drug implication. I really can't say, the reasons are lost in the fog of time.This was a decent book. Harsh in places. Touching in others. Well worth reading.
—Keith Blodgett
