Quiet banter between a mute man and tongue-tied boy

But at the end of their first day, Howard knows it's all a mistake. "The truth is," he thinks, "this boy is a little stranger.... I'm trying to remember what life is like at nine years old, and whether kids in my day were as inscrutable as this one." In the crushing silence, he tortures himself slowly by imagining all the casual, friendly banter that would break the ice if only he could speak.

Of course, Sylvia doesn't come back the next day or even the next week, and Howard must face the task of providing Ryan with a real home rather than temporary lodging. He already has three tenants in the large house that his parents left him: Nit and Nat, two young house painters, who swear and walk around in their underwear, and Laurel, a Vietnamese woman who supplies soup to area restaurants.

They can all speak, but otherwise they don't seem much better equipped to care for Ryan than Howard is. "I'm not one of those gals with untapped maternal instincts," Laurel announces the moment she can get Howard alone.

"Hey: me," Howard thinks. "This is my thing." But it takes a village to raise a child, or at least a household of misfits, and before long, all of them are drawn together in a makeshift family that illustrates the persistence of affection and the wondrous variety of domestic arrangements.

There's nothing forced or sentimental here. Ryan is not unscathed by the effects of growing up with a drug-addicted mother. And his unruly presence disrupts the fragile emotional stability that Howard has managed to maintain through years of isolation. What's worse, Howard resents that he has to do all the heavy work, while Nit and Nat get to play the cool uncles and Laurel bakes cookies.

Parenting is hard work, and anybody who's done it can sympathize with Howard's speechlessness in the face of a surly little boy. He's determined not to lapse into his "Boo Radley act," but the anxiety of loving someone so infuriating is the hardest thing he's ever done. For the first time in years, he has to get used to "the incomparable strangeness of feeling tired at bedtime."

Most of the novel is taken up with this story of hammering out the new dimensions of family life for all four of these characters who never expected much from life. "More than ever," Howard thinks, "I want the happiness to cohere," but he can't shake the sense of muted panic that all this will come crashing down as soon as Ryan's mother is better, which of course he wants.

The paths to recovery - of all kinds - are not smooth or assured in "The Ha-Ha." Howard's lapses take him back to humiliations that some readers may find too gritty. But this is ultimately a story of smothered tenderness coaxed back to flame. In the poetic voice of a silent man, King has created a strangely lovable hero whose chance for happiness will matter to you deeply.

• Ron Charles is the Monitor's book editor. Send e-mail comments about the book section toRon Charles.

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