Rash
Authors: Pete Hautman
ALSO BY
PETE HAUTMAN
Invisible
“With its excellent plot development and unforgettable, heartbreaking protagonist, this is a compelling novel of mental illness.”
—
School Library Journal
, starred review
“Hautman once again proves his keen ability for characterization and for building suspense.”
—
Publishers Weekly
, starred review
Godless
National Book Award winner
“Thought-provoking and unique.”
—
Kirkus Reviews
, starred review
“Hautman knows how to project a voice. . . . [H]onest and true to the bone.”
—
Booklist
, starred review
“Of course, without people like us Marstens, there wouldn’t be anybody to do the manual labor that makes this country run. Without penal workers, who would work the production lines, or pick the melons and peaches, or maintain the streets and parks and public lavatories? Our economy depends on prison labor. Without it everybody would have to work-whether they wanted to or not.”
In the late twenty-first century
Bo Marsten is unjustly accused of causing a rash that plagues his entire high school. He loses it, and as a result, he’s sentenced to work in the Canadian tundra, at a pizza factory that’s surrounded by hungry polar bears. Bo finds prison life to be both boring and dangerous, but it’s nothing compared to what happens when he starts playing on the factory’s highly illegal football team. In the meantime, Bork, an artificial intelligence that Bo created for a science project, tracks Bo down in prison. Bork has spun out of control and seems to be operating on his own. He offers to get Bo’s sentence shortened, but can Bo trust him? And now that Bo has been crushing skulls on the field, will he be able to go back to his old, highly regulated life?
Pete Hautman takes a satirical look at an antiseptic future in this darkly comic mystery/adventure.
A Junior Library Guild Selection
PETE HAUTMAN
has written many novels for adults and teens, including Invisible, which author Will Weaver called “a taut, perfectly-pitched snare drum of a novel.” He is also the author of
Godless
, winner of the National Book Award;
Sweetblood
;
Hole in the Sky
;
No Limit
; and
Mr. Was
. Pete lives in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Visit his Web site at
www.petehautman.com
.
JACKET DESIGN BY GREG STABNYK
JACKET PHOTOGRAPHS COPYRIGHT © 2006 BY
CLARISSA LEAHY/TAXI (RUNNER) and
DAVID DELOSSY/ PHOTODISC (BEAR)
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2006 by Pete Hautman
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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OOKS FOR
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Book design by Jessica Sonkin
The text for this book is set in Melior.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hautman, Pete, 1952–
Rash / Pete Hautman.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: In a future society that has decided it would “rather be safe than be free,” sixteen-year-old Bo’s anger control problems land him in a tundra jail where he survives with the help of his running skills and an artificial intelligence program named Bork.
ISBN-13: 978-0-689-86801-6
ISBN-10: 0-689-86801-4
[1. Self-control—Fiction. 2. Individuality—Fiction. 3. Football—Fiction. 4. Artificial intelligence—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H2887Ras 2006
[Fic]—dc22
2005015251
ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-1526-8 (ebook)
Also by Pete Hautman
Invisible
Godless
Sweetblood
Hole in the Sky
No Limit
Mr. Was
I pledge Allegiance
to the Flag
of the Safer States of America
and to the Republic
for which it stands
one Nation
under Law
with Security
and Safety
for All.
