Elijah Greenface

Joe Hagarsson is 17. His father is a Vietnam vet who has been so deeply shaken by the War that he can’t see any point in a life afterwards. His mother seems to desert him too, and to betray him because, on the other hand, she does go on with her life and forms new relationships. And to Joe, any relationship would be a betrayal. So Joe feels totally alone and driven to make the choice his father made.
But in the end he chooses life. Not tentatively or temporarily, but with conviction. In his search for an easier way out, he falls in with a bizarre gang, whose leader calls himself Captain Ahab and demands utter obedience from anyone wishing to join his crew. If Joe is to join, he must first find a man in a black cloak, mug him, and steal his cloak. This mysterious man, Elijah Greenface, turns out to be a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust in World War II, and it is through his experiences that Joe learns he must forgive his father, understand his mother, and then go on with his own life.