"Did you really rescue your mother from a fate worse than death on a cliff overlooking the sea?"
 
After a mysterious accident left him paralyzed, sixteen-year-old Joseph finds himself living with his father in Minneapolis and working hot summer days in a bakery. What happened to the life he used to live? How did he come to be here? Although they approach the mystery in different ways, two people in Joseph's new life--seventeen-year-old Zap, who also works in the bakery, and Enzo, a fierce and funny nine-year-old girl--both want to find out.
 
"Are you really a superhero?" whispers Enzo, who secretly longs for her world to be transformed. "Please be a superhero."
 
Stoically quiet, Joseph has never thought of himself as a superhero, especially now that he is in a wheelchair and can't feel his legs. But others disagree. Who is the hero? Who is the enemy? Is redemption possible, and if so, where is it to be found? In Alison McGhee's strange and powerful Falling Boy, a small band of tough kids turn the myth of the superhero inside out as they face down the shadows of childhood.