Mudfish is a revealing biographical study of one boy, Rod Spike. It's an unflinchingly unsentimental depiction of adolescence confusion and anxiety; a frank depiction of growing up in a mixed race household in a predominantly African American neighbourhood in Pittsburgh; a harrowing story of suffering from a long-undiagnosed disease that at times seemed certain to cut a life way too short; and a story of a young man whose burgeoning intellectual and creative curiosity makes him acutely aware of a deck stacked against him despite his determination to transcend those limitations.