Abstract:
This is the coming-of-age-story about Matt Dante whose Charles Dickens-like tale portrays a dysfunctional family and the banished Dante Butchers whom he is forbidden to meet.

Dante journeys downward toward insanity as he encounters depression, alcoholism, suicide, lust, loneliness, and adolescent sexual frustration.

Like all great classical heros, Matt uses his anguish and inner pain to escape his mediocre destiny by using his imagination to create a fantasy world; escaping reality, the horror of his hometown and the Dante family, where his only savior is a cigar chomping butcher.