Children of the Knight - A Selfish S.O.B.'s Review

I’m a selfish S.O.B. No, it’s true. I am.

I know this because of the barometer by which I gauge myself: my partner.

Like countless others we have those conversations about what we would do if we won the lottery. Tom wants to open a privately-funded homeless shelter that doesn’t get mired in all the bureaucratic red tape. Or maybe it’s a senior citizen home? See, I’m too selfish to remember.

Me? I want to quit my job and focus entirely on writing. Priorities: gotta have 'em.

I’m not proud of this fact. Nor have I resigned myself to my nature either. Often times, I’ll volunteer to help out with projects at church or I'll hear of initiatives taken up by my employer or close friends that inspire me to be involved. The thing is, once the time rolls around to step up and count myself in, I find a million and one excuses to not participate. See what I mean? S.E.L.F.I.S.H. S.O.B.

So when I come across someone like Michael J. Bowler, I realize just how out of my depth I am. This guy deserves to be canonized. Seriously, look him up; you’ll see what I mean. His passion for runaways and homeless kids and the juveniles already trapped in a legal system that dooms them to failure from the get-go is awe inspiring. Reading Children of the Knight was like being head-jacked directly to Bowler and his 30-years of life experience with countless young people who our system has marginalized and failed to protect.

Into the midst of their despair and struggle, Bowler drops King Arthur, who has returned just as the prophecy foretold he would when his country needed him most. Apparently, since the United States began as a British Colony, it counts as his country as well.

Arthur sees the struggle of the abandoned, abused, and homeless children of Los Angeles and begins a new Crusade – a Children’s Crusade meant to better their lives and, by proxy, the deteriorating neighborhoods they call home. He begins a new Round Table made up of runaways, juvenile delinquents, members from dueling gangs, and teen prostitutes. It’s a daunting and impressive dream, but Arthur repeatedly proves he’s up to the task.

And therein lies my problem.

I felt as if Bowler loved these children and his vision for their utopia so much that they were unstoppable. No task seemed too great, no adversity too difficult for them to overcome. They all seemed to have hearts of gold and virtuous cores, no matter how difficult or challenging their upbringing. Gangbangers, prostitutes, drug addicts, the children of privilege, everyone's heart of stone seemed to melt almost immediately under Arthur's love and guidance.

Similarly, most of the adults in positions of power (government heads, drug dealers, etc.) seemed to be nothing more than maniacal villains out to thwart Arthur and his young knights at every turn. While I'm not suggesting that a drug dealer would necessarily have a heart of gold, some nuance to their characters would have rounded them out and allowed them to be more interesting people. Instead, most of the characters felt more like types to me rather than living, breathing human beings, and the book read more as an agitprop piece instead of a novel.

I've read numerous reviews of this book in which the reviewer comments on how moved they were by the current plight of homeless children in our society, thanks to Bowler's book. Unfortunately, for me, though the lives of these characters might turn dire, even deadly at times, I didn't feel the connection with them to make me care (selfish S.O.B., remember?). Instead, the book came across as heavy-handed. There were so many speeches concerning the current state of affairs and the steps that should be taken to rectify them that, to be honest, had I not received a free copy of the book for review, I wouldn't have finished it.

Until we came to the climax, that is.

At the end of the book I felt Bowler found his stride and brought everything to an intense close. For the first time, I wanted to know what would happen next and found myself caring about these characters. In fact, rather than ride my bike to work, I took the metro just so I could keep reading and find out what happened. And I'll admit that this old selfish S.O.B.'s eyes did start to burn and get a bit teary a couple of times near the end.

Bowler also managed to keep a lot of balls in the air throughout the novel. He did an admirable job of keeping numerous storylines going without letting them fall to the wayside.

This left me believing that Bowler does have some stories to tell that I would like to read. In this case, however, I felt as if he was so close to his subject matter that he couldn't get the kind of perspective needed to flesh out his characters and make them relatable and, in turn, make me care.