Everyone makes the claim that their family is weird. When Alan says this he really means it. He
is the son of a
mountain and a washing machine. Being the eldest, he has to care for his siblings, all
brothers, one of whom is an island(literally) and three who are actually a set of nesting dolls who will starve to death unless placed one within the other within the other. They all live inside their father, the mountain. Their mother is hooked up to an underground lake in their father’s main cavern. The last child their mother gives birth to is David, an emaciated creature who almost immediately begins to torment the denizens of the mountain, biting and clawing his brothers, mutilating animals and destroying what few possessions this unlikely family has. Alan bears the brunt of this onslaught. For some inexplicable reason David seems to despise him. He even follows Alan to school and throws rocks at him whenever he comes outside. Alan has no friends because he knows he can never bring anyone home and also that no one would be able to comprehend his situation. He can’t get his mind around it, himself. He has no idea how a family like his is even possible. Many times he asks his father to tell him how and why this came to be. His father’s answer, coming on the warm breezes that blow through the cavern, is invariably the same: that there is no answer and if there is even he does not know it. Alan grows more frustrated and resigns himself to a long, lonely life. That is, until he meets Marci, a transfer student from Scotland. She is everything Alan’s classmates are not, wild and willful, with an indomitable spirit. She lives with her father, a mining engineer. Marci happens upon him accidentally one day while he’s out in the woods near the school and thinks he’s actually been stalking her. He manages to convince her that he poses no threat and from that point they are nearly inseparable, spending lunch and recess together, playing in the woods and hanging out at Marci’s house. Alan finds that he cares very deeply for Marci but he still faces the same problem: how can he ever hope to explain his bizarre family to her? She eventually becomes suspicious of the fact that they never go to his home. Alan is almost at the point where he can’t make excuses any longer. But soon he doesn’t have to worry about it. Marci follows him home from school one day and learns the truth. And she is not afraid. She cares so much about Alan that it doesn’t matter to her. Alan knows right then and there that he truly loves her. But their love is not meant to be. David, in a final act of viciousness, murders Marci. This is the last straw for Alan and his other brothers. They band together and kill David and bury him on Alan’s brother, the island. Alan has finally had enough and soon leaves the mountain for good. Years later he is a grown man, living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, renovating an old house and trying to lead a quiet, anonymous life. But David has risen from the dead to take revenge. One by one Alan’s brothers disappear, presumably killed by David and Alan is forced to confront his past once again. Cory Doctorow takes an extremely outlandish story and characters and humanizes them. Alan, even with his strange family, is easy to relate to. He is sincere and caring, no matter what.