Rule of the Bone is a 1995 novel by Russell Banks. It is a Bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story about the 14-year-old American narrator, Chappie, later dubbed Bone (named for a tattoo that he gets), who, after having dropped out of school, turns to the guidance of a Rastafarian Jamaican migrant worker. Structure The novel is split into two halves: the first concerns his family struggles in America, and the second describes his experiences in Jamaica. Some critics, such as Michiko Kakutani for The New York Times, describe the book as descending from other novels about rebellious teens, such as J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn [New York Times review, May 19, 1995]. The book contains frank descriptions of drug use such as marijuana and methamphetamine and sexual abuse by the narrator's stepfather, which, coupled with the young age of the narrator, has contributed to the book's controversy. Characters Chapman Dorset (a.k.a. Chappie, Bone) is the protagonist of the book. He is a 14-year-old drug dealer living in upstate New York with his mother and his abusive stepfather. He runs away from home to live with his best friend and a biker gang. Bone, although a hardened drug dealer on the outside, is revealed to be quite compassionate, wanting to free an abused girl named Froggy from her captor and to return his mentor I-Man back to his home. In the end he gives up on family. I-Man is Bone's mentor and becomes his closest friend. He is a Rastafarian migrant worker living illegally in upstate New York, in an old school bus that has been emptied and fixed up. He flies home to Jamaica with Bone, where he returns to the drug trade. I-Man is not only Bone's mentor and close friend but he also becomes somewhat of a "father figure" to Bone, something that he has never been able to find in Ken and Doc. Paul Dorset (a.k.a. Doc) is Bone's estranged father who left his mother when Bone was young and moved to Jamaica. He has a relationship with Evening Star, and stays with her in Starport/the Mothership. Rose (a.k.a. Froggy) is a little girl who was sold by her mother to Buster Brown, a pedophile. She is from Milwaukee. Bone saves her from her captor and she lives for some time in the bus with him and I-man.