TOMMY MACK

Things only very rarely, if ever, run smoothly for the young Tommy in Volumes I and II of the Tommy Mack series. In this third volume, A College Try, the difficulties he faces are intensified. After all, at this stage of his life, Tommy is officially a young man, off on his own at college. But not only is he independent, trying to figure out where he fits in and how to comport himself in a rapidly changing world--the 1970s--but he experiences a series of betrayals during his two years at college. One by one, the people who are closest to him, in the most important areas of his life--family, romance, friendship, mentorship, and his college peer group--turn out to be not what he thought they were.

But even though Dixon often has every reason to give up on people, he never loses hope or his faith in himself. Nor does he ever lose his sense of humor, even while recounting not a few cautionary tales about situations he learns to avoid along the way to adulthood. "I had an itch that needed scratching," he recalls about a night out with his friends from work, "and the dance floor looked like a #60-grit sheet of sandpaper.