Everybody, including his parents, thinks Peter Macaulay is a mentally backward, totally uncoordinated child, one who is so pathologically shy that on his loquacious days he might say “Yes” or “No” in response to a question. He is teased and bullied unmercifully at school and has no friends. The only person who seems to matter to him is his mother. He loves her unconditionally, even though she often abuses him when she has been drinking. The scores of mistresses of her husband, Jack, over the years had turned her to drink.
Jack spends much of his free time servicing his mistresses and following the spectacular high school sports careers of his two older twins, Joey and Teddy. He is ashamed of his youngest son and basically ignores him. When Peter is set to enter Castlemont High School, however, Jack, upset at others (including parents) calling his son a retard, hires a tutor known for her ability to teach unteachable kids. Can this Miss Gaffney find the key to opening up Peter’s mind? Meanwhile, with his twins now in college at Notre Dame, Jack starts playing driveway basketball with Peter, trying to determine if his klutz of a son has any athletic ability at all. When Peter demonstrates some jumping and shooting ability, Jack starts dreaming of his pigeon-toed son possibly playing on the all-black high school basketball team. After bribing the principal of Castlemont with a $10,000 IOU, Jack faces his biggest hurdle. Will the basketball team accept an uncoordinated white boy known around the school as “The Geek”? Peter’s fate is now in the hands of two black teammates who want to help him and others who batter and bully him, even threatening his life.
Mama’s Boy is a literary exploration of race relations, an unlikely romance for co-narrator Nora Quindt (a college senior who helps tutor Peter), and a homage to Fred “Sweetie” Davis and James Winkfield, two unforgettable black basketball players who in high school were friends of the author.
