The Brooklyn Rail

Cue Ball

We’re often told that successful fiction catalogs a protagonist’s emotional transformation, but what I find most appealing about Bobby Grace’s “Cue Ball” is that the two main characters, best friends who we follow from childhood to adulthood, resist change to the very end. As a child, Rory moves from Ireland to Arkansas and grows up feeling like an outsider. He latches onto BB, a troubled boy who idolizes his hustler father. When BB’s father abandons him, he decides to follow in his footsteps and leave town too, even though Rory is certain that his friend will meet a terrible fate. Over several decades, we watch the boys' physical transformations, but despite BB’s determination to destroy himself and his friendship, Rory’s love for him persists. Ultimately, “Cue Ball” is a story about devotion and vulnerability, about making a home in people instead of places, and accepting that some people cannot be changed, but deciding to love them anyway.