The Pelican & After is a 1983 novel by Tom Wallace Lyons.
Tony Hastings, a mentally ill fourteen-year-old, has been attending a boarding school for emotionally disturbed children since he was eight years old. As he struggles with his violent urges, suicidal thoughts, and guilt over his inability to feel love, he and his fellow students must also deal with the many strict, nonsensical rules and the school's tyrannical director Dr. Vorlichten, aka Dr. V.
The Pelican & After contains examples of:
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Tony's twelve-year-old brother Paul, who enrages Tony by saying he goes to a "wacky school."
- Big Brother Bully: Tony was sent to the School partly because he used to beat up on Paul.
- Cat Scare: While visiting his grandmother, Tony walks into an empty silo. He hears noises and thinks he's about to be attacked. Then he realizes it's a cat.
- Funetik Aksent: Dr. V speaks with a phonetic Austrian accent.
- Gangbangers: On excursions into Chicago, the boys are harassed by a gang called the Hewds. The first time, cops nearby are able to stop the fight. The second time, they're alone, but they're able to fight off the Hewds themselves.
- Grievous Bottley Harm: Paul threatens to hit Tony with a bottle at one point.
- Groin Attack: Tony accidentally hits Freddy in the crotch with a dodgeball. He's terrified afterwards, because Dr. V thinks all accidents are reflections of a child's subconscious and has been known to punish students harshly over such incidents.
- Love at First Sight: During a family vacation in Acapulco, Tony meets a woman named Marta. She tells him that about five years ago, she saw a man standing by a truck and instantly knew that this was the man she was going to marry. The story ended badly: he turned out to be a drug addict and died in an institution.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Dr. V is a thinly-veiled parody of Bruno Bettelheim, director of the Orthogenic School between 1944 and 1973.
- Potty Failure: Dr. V slaps Tony repeatedly for buying a book about a serial killer, causing him to piss his pants.
- The Runaway: Ted, one of the students, leaves the School and manages to hitchhike fifty miles before he's picked up by a police car.
- Tragic Keepsake: Tony's grandmother has a blue porcelain fox that she received as a parting gift from her mother shortly before her death when she was six.
