In the following essays, Davis explores the "strong" characters and "painful" subject matter Crutcher presents in The Crazy Horse Electric Game.

There's a point near the end of The Crazy Horse Electric Game when Willie has gone home to face the people and things he ran out on. He finds his parents divorced and his mom remarried, his dad has become a brutal drunk and tells him "I'm not your dad," and his old girlfriend Jenny calls him a son of a bitch. He rides up into the hills on the motorcycle he and his dad used to ride together, and the narrator tells us: "Willie can't believe there's this much sadness in the world."

When we consider Crutcher's status in young adult literature it might be hard to believe that any of his books were ever met with disapproval or disdain. But Crazy Horse was, and...