2005 first-time novelists
Alternative Atlanta
By Marshall Boswell (Delacorte, 324 pages, $22.)
Plot in a nutshell: It's 1996, and Atlanta is getting ready for the Olympics. Gerald Brinkman is 30, a grad school dropout and rock critic for an alternative weekly. While his contemporaries seem to have gotten on with their lives, he's behind in his rent; the love of his life has just gotten married - and now a married friend whom he's had a crush on for a couple of years seems to be coming on to him; his father's invaded his apartment and seems to have settled in for the duration; and, in between writing reviews for groups with names like Sewer Pipe and getting as stoned as he did in his student days, Gerald's attempting to prepare for a job interview with a major music publication in New York, and not doing all that well with any of it - except the getting stoned part.
Sample of prose: "Of course, Gerald could always quit smoking pot. He could make a solemn vow never to get high while listening to new records or while watching a local rock group he has been assigned to review. He knows that. He knows that he should quit. In fact, he thinks about quitting every time he gets stoned... I SHOULD STOP DOING THIS, he tells himself, his hands trembling with excitement. THIS IS RIDICULOUS. But the mere anticipation of that glorious transition from flat digital clarity to fuzzy analog bliss always goads him into taking that first long drag, the smoke burning the lining of his throat and swirling around his lungs. And no matter how bad he feels the next morning, or how paranoid he grows an hour or two later as each chime of the telephone sends his heart racing into his mouth with the nameless and wholly irrational panic that every true pothead knows as intimately as a drunkard knows the shakes, he nevertheless feels, the next evening, utterly convinced that such self-lacerating side effects are entirely worth the pleasure of that first happy moment when you realize, with a stupid dreamy grin, that you're like, totally baked."
Author reminds me of: No one in particular from the 20th century. So, let's just say we have another Boswell and let it go at that.
Best reason to read: Boswell's characters are complex and compelling - particularly Gerald's whacked-out father, who steals the show.
-Ed Halloran
A Wild Ride up the Cupboards
By Ann Bauer (Scribner, 288 pages, $24).
Author's background: Bauer is an essayist and journalist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and Salon.com. She lives in Minneapolis, where she is an editor and writer for Minnesota Monthly.
Plot in a nutshell: This story takes the reader through two decades of Rachel's life: from the time she meets her future husband in college, through the birth of three children before she's 30, and into the hell of trying to understand why her intelligent, happy toddler has changed into a grade schooler who won't eat, sleep or talk. This book deals with coping mechanisms: for Rachel, her husband, her son and her uncle, who suffered from his own childhood disorders.
Sample of prose: "There is a stretch of highway that runs from the massive Minnesota-shaped sign inscribed ‘Thank You for Visiting the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes' to a simple white plaque that bears a timid ‘Welcome to Iowa.' In the only full sentence he uttered during the summer he was six, Edward named the space between the two states the Nowhere Place."
Author reminds me of: Sue Miller
Best reason to read: This book asks the hard questions - how much should a mother sacrifice for her children? who decides what's best for a child? - without judgment and with sympathy and compassion for the characters' flaws. Even if you're not a wife or mother, the story is so well told you'll want to keep reading until the end.
-Vicky Uhland
Dead and Dying Angels (Volume One of the Dos Cruces Trilogy)
By James A Mangum (John M. Hardy Publishing, 240 pages, $19.95).
Author's background: Born and raised in South Texas, Mangum has lived and worked throughout the United States for the federal government as a sky marshall and a special agent with the U.S. Treasury Department. He recently moved to Shiner, Texas, "the cleanest little city in Texas," according to his bio, and now works as a folk artist, "rescuer of wayward homes," and a teller of tales.
Plot in a nutshell: Jamey Maxwell is a retired U.S. Customs agent whose family was killed in a car wreck. He has moved to the village of Dos Cruces, Texas and is seriously contemplating suicide. The rape and murder of a young girl brings him back to reality - sort of - and he gets on the case, only to discover that he's the prime suspect. Note: The book ends with the first three chapters of Volume Two.
Sample of prose: "And speaking of God's will, there is only one mortal sin in God's eyes and it's not included in the Ten Commandments, Bible, Koran, Torah, or other sacred writings. The one mortal sin, the one that God never forgives, is presumptuousness. Specifically, presuming to know God's will. Because He doesn't always know it himself. God does not like to be second-guessed. So, a little hint before we continue with this tale: if you have a bumper sticker on your vehicle that reads, ‘In Case of Rapture, This Car Will Be Unmanned,' I would invest, ASAP, in a razor blade and remove said bumper sticker. And, oh yes, if you actually believe the bumper sticker, I would invest, ASAP, in a frontal lobotomy. Never forget this point. Now to the story."
Author reminds me of: Peter Gent, for his ability to depict Texas: the land and the people.
Best reason to read: This is a short, intense, nonstop book. His characters are fully defined and truly memorable. One caveat: This wouldn't be a comfortable read for people who describe themselves as "deeply religious."
-Ed Halloran
Flight
By Ginger Strand (Simon & Schuster, 311 pages, $23).
Plot in a nutshell: Flight is used literally and figuratively in this sensitive novel of family dynamics. Flying has consumed the life of Will Gruen, a pilot facing mandatory retirement, and flight in another sense has lurked in the minds of his wife, forced to relocate at her husband's whims, and his two daughters who fled from their rural Michigan home - only to return for a family wedding.
Sample of prose: "Will had big thoughts and acted on them, with no regard for what anyone else might think. It was like that when he joined the Air Force . . . or when he bought the farm in Michigan, uprooting them from their nice suburb. Will was driven to re-make the world, for no better reason than that he could."
Author reminds me of: Louise Erdrich, who shares Strand's ability to portray ordinary families with compassionate skill and graceful evocative style.
Best reason to read: Strand's poet's eye enables her to capture entire experiences and emotions with small, telling details. She has successfully plumbed the depths of the complex emotions swirling through the modest, but engaging, Gruen family.
-Joan Hinkemeyer
The Great Stink
By Clare Clark (Harcourt, 368 pages, $25).
Plot in a nutshell: In the mid-1800s, London is a mess. Sweeping the city are epidemics of diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid and cholera, largely because the city's drinking water is mostly drawn from the Thames, the same place where the city's waste is dumped. In essence, London is poisoning itself, as highly toxic gases rise from the sewers, corrupting the air people breathe.
Detail-oriented junior surveyor William May is called upon to help transform London's ineffectual sewer system into one of the engineering wonders of the world. But May has his own problems. He still suffers mightily from physical and mental injuries dealt on the battlefields of the Crimean War, from which he recently has returned. As May struggles with his sanity in the dark depths and disgusting stink of the underground, his life is disrupted by a murder of which he is accused.
May's mind is so fogged and confused at times that he isn't sure whether he is innocent or guilty. His wife, Polly, is becoming fearful of his strange actions and, at work, May is surrounded by unscrupulous men.
Sample of prose: "Rawlinson glanced over his half-moon spectacles at the private in front of him, conscious for the thousandth time of the smooth sheen of his own black coat, the starched white of his collar. He had been in Russia almost two weeks and still it shocked him, the deplorable state of the men he encountered here. This one was a particularly sorry specimen. He was so spare that the bones seemed to shine white through the skin of his face and he trailed the thin sour reek of sickness and squalor . . . He had, thought Rawlinson, the appearance of a lion too long in captivity. Beside him the rigid captain in his scarlet coat made a reluctant keeper. No doubt he would prefer an animal more reflective of his impeccable military bearing, a fine Arabian stallion, perhaps, or a Bengal tiger."
Author reminds me of: Stephen King, in her ability to craft a compelling scene through vivid writing, and of Charles Dickens, in the way she weaves London's grimy historic past into a riveting story filled with characters that reach out and touch you.
Best reason to read: If you can get past the unappealing title, this impressive novel offers a unique historic view of Victorian London that few Americans know. With the sewers as a surprising backdrop, Clark cleverly interlaces a dark world with highly flawed and fascinating people.
-Verna Noel Jones
The Hill Road
By Patrick O'Keeffe (Viking, 225 pages, $23.95).
Author's background: O'Keeffe, who emigrated from Ireland in the mid-1980s, earned an MFA from the University of Michigan, where he is currently a lecturer.
Plot in a nutshell: This lyrical and evocative collection of four novellas about rural Ireland spans several generations, each of which concerns a mysterious disappearance or death. Although each ultimately is explained, the nucleus of the stories is O'Keeffe's realistic yet humorous view of his characters as they interact with each other and cope with the small and large tragedies of their lives.
Sample of prose: "Saint Nash's Forge stood in the shadow of Kilkelly village, at a cross of three roads, where you turn right onto the hill road; it was a small hut, set back ten feet from the roadside, with a rust-eaten roof that was shaded by old and leafy sycamores. Beneath the sycamores were four abandoned milk churns, stained by rust patterns that looked like boiling rain clouds, and the grass and weeds grew up around them like a jungle."
Author reminds me of: Niall Williams, another Irish author who shares his gift for eloquently recreating the intense longing, wretched heartbreaks and powerful stoicism of ordinary folks.
Best reason to read: O'Keeffe's vibrant and luminous prose, gentle humor, ability to artfully combine past and present and his affection for his strong yet tender characters make this a work to savor.
-Joan Hinkemeyer
Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits
Laila Lalami (Algonquin Books, 208 pages, $21.95).
Plot in a nutshell: From separate walks of life, four Moroccan main characters' stories are linked in their desperation to illegally immigrate to Spain across the Strait of Gibraltar to find better employment and better conditions for themselves and their families. The book opens with the treacherous journey in a raft, and focuses on Faten, Noura, Halima and Aziz, then moves backwards to the events that brought them there.
The story follows their lives as they struggle to make their way in a strange land combating prejudice and squalor. As usual, when trying to escape one's problems, other problems are created.
Sample of prose: "Larbi Amrani didn't consider himself a superstitious man, but when the prayer beads that hung on his rearview mirror broke, he found himself worrying that this could be an omen. His mother had given him the sandalwood beads on his college graduation, shortly before her death, advising him to use them often and well. At first Larbi had carried the beads in his pocket, fingered them after every prayer, but as the years went by he'd used them with decreasing regularity, until one day they ended up as decoration in his car. Now they lay scattered, amber dots on the black floor mats."
Author reminds me of: T. C. Boyle in his wonderful book The Tortilla Curtain, in the way he was able to capture the plight and desperation of illegal immigrants, allowing readers inside their heads and lives.
Best reason to read: This well-written "journal" is a reminder that, in spite of religious and cultural differences, we all have the same wants and needs under the skin - a timely topic in this age when the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina have taken center stage.
-Justin Matott
Incendiary
By Chris Cleave (Alfred A. Knopf, 288 pages, $22.95).
Plot in a nutshell: Written as a letter to Osama bin Laden, Incendiary tells the story of a young, working-class Londoner who lost her husband and son to a massive terrorist attack. Cleave uses a unique writing style to portray the woman's grief, compassion, street smarts and irrepressible humor in the face of horrific tragedy. The book takes the reader through a year of the woman's life and, peripherally, through the lives of other Londoners forever changed by bin Laden's acts.
Sample of prose: "In my dream Osama I wrote you this letter and you read it and then you went off behind a rock where your men couldn't see you and you cried and you wished you hadn't killed my boy. It made you too sad now. You didn't feel angry anymore you just felt tired."
Author reminds me of: Cleave's is an original voice; I can't think of any other author's work his prose resembles.
Best reason to read: Incendiary stands out among the growing number of 9/11- influenced novels. Cleave's style conveys raw grief, but its levity prevents the reader from wallowing in the tragedy. A readable, personal take on 21st-century terrorism.
-Vicky Uhland
Little Fugue
By Robert Anderson (Ballantine Books, 384 pages, $24.95).
Plot in a nutshell: This book explores Sylvia Plath's post mortem celebrity vs. her husband's (England's poet laureate Ted Hughes) ongoing career - as seen through the eyes of the fictional Robert Anderson, a Columbia-educated fiction writer whose life is transformed by reading the Ariel poems. It's a tale that's been told before, but this one has some some major twists that take the narrative from England to New York, and back again.
Sample of prose: "Sylvia seems to have left detailed instructions to posterity regarding the way in which she would like to be unremittingly psychoanalyzed in the echo chamber of Ted's conscience and also in the dominion of Western literary studies. She was not only responsible for her own death; she selected the subterfuge of her burial site. She killed herself in pursuit of neither rest nor peace, nor even understanding, since recognition hardly ever equals understanding."
Author reminds me of: Jean-Paul Sartre. Little Fugue is a superb existentialist novel.
Best reason to read: Anderson has obviously done his homework, and he moves swiftly into and out of the minds of Hughes, Plath, and Hughes' mistress, Assia Gutmann Weivill. This, by itself, is a major contribution, because it underscores the fact that poets still matter. But the highlight of this book is a young photographer named Sabbath - the love of the narrator's life. Anderson has created a willful and completely fascinating female who'd give Sartre's Ivich a run for her money.
-Ed Halloran
Looped
By Andrew Winston (Agate, 411 pages, $14.95).
Author's background: Winston is the past editor-in-chief and fiction editor of Chicago Review.
Plot in a nutshell: The author follows a number of Chicagoans, including several small-time criminals, through the year 2000. His characters frequently cross each other's paths, with results ranging from friendships, to flirtations, to full-blown love, with a fair amount of violence thrown in. A street preacher, Brother Even, appears every now and again to serve as a latter-day Greek chrous, commenting on the passing scene.
Sample of prose: "The lake is a brooding backdrop for the winter's evening. Ice has melted and re-frozen to a high polish in the harbors, the winter sun working like a slow Zamboni....Traffic swishes along the Drive, carrying the city's blood out to the limbs, the bedroom communities, the phalangeal districts. The lake is shingled with plates of ice that slowly swell and drop with the muffled waves blown in from the far, unfrozen reaches, if there are any such places between here and the dunes on Michigan's far shore. And a few seagulls still circle, hoping for some belly-up alewives or a taco shell to tide them over until daylight."
Author reminds me of: Hubert Selby (Last Exit to Brooklyn).
Best reason to read: For its richly drawn characters, so engaging that it's hard not to cheat and skip ahead to see what will happen to them. , Brother Even's closing commentary alone is worth the read.
-Ed Halloran
The Madness of Love
By Katherine Davies (Random House, 255 pages, $13.95).
Plot in a nutshell: On impulse, Valentina cuts her long hair to masquerade as a gardener for Leo, a melancholy musician living on an overgrown estate near the seaside town of Illerwick. There she meets Melody, an English teacher, who is grieving for her brother's recent suicide. Leo loves Melody, as does an aging alcoholic headmaster and Fitch, a teenager helping on the estate. Many misunderstandings are alternately hilarious or sad before everything is well sorted at Leo's grand garden party finale.
Sample of prose: "The car slices through the cold air, speeding through iced darkness. Melody's stomach is a tight knot. The dinner was awkward, the hotel raucous, hot and merry. He'd tried to tell her about the musical instruments of Borneo. His gestures, his flailing arms, had embarrassed her. His hair had embarrassed her. He had run his fingers through it, transferring butter and crumbs from his side plate into its coils."
Author reminds me of: Sophie Powell's style in The Mushroom Man, but the plot is a contemporary re-telling of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.
Best reason to read: This is a fast-paced, witty tragic-comedy that might best be summarized by saying: All's well that ends well - and the journey is exceedingly enjoyable, as well.
-Joan Hinkemeyer
The Mayor of Lexington Avenue
By James Sheehan (Yorkville, 420 pages, $14.95).
Plot in a nutshell: In balmy Bass Creek, Fla., a young convenience store clerk named Rudy, with an IQ of 75, bumbles into the life of loose and seductive Lucy Ochoa, hoping to get a little action. She invites him to her house - only to suffer fatal consequences when her jealous lover sees Rudy leaving, slits her throat and skips town.
Police Detective Sergeant Wesley Brume arrives on the scene and, in his haste to make a name for himself, frames Rudy, who eventually ends up on death row. During Rudy's 10-year stretch on death row, those who try to work on the case turn up dead.
Enter Jack Tobin, a wealthy Miami lawyer, who is coincidentally moving to Bass Creek. Tobin gets involved in Rudy's case after realizing that his best friend in New York, Mikey, was Rudy's estranged biological father. Jack owes Rudy's father a great debt because of indiscretions from childhood days. Thus, he's compelled to wade in to save Rudy. Soon Jack is fighting a criminal lawyer who is Mafia-connected and will do anything to get his clients off, including murder.
Let the fireworks begin.
Sample of prose: "Cobb County was located at the northwest corner of Lake Okeechobee in the south central part of the state, where the word 'cracker' didn't refer to something you ate."
Author reminds me of: Early John Grisham mixed with a dash of David Baldacci's legal and character development and Patricia Cornwell's ability to move a story along at a brisk pace.
Best reason to read: Mayor tackles the controversial issue of capital punishment in a flawed legal system by putting a human face on it. Sheehan could have resorted to a didactic position, but instead has drawn a thoughtful narrative with engaging characters and an engrossing plot line. This is the kind of novel you want to curl up with and read straight through - a fast-paced, dandy debut.
-Justin Matott
No Direction Home
By Marisa Silver (W.W. Norton, 288 pages, $23.95).
Author's background: Silver is a Los Angeles film director who wrote Babes In Paradise, a critically acclaimed short story collection.
Plot in a nutshell: After their father abandons them, Caroline moves her ten year-old twins to Los Angeles, to live with her mother and father. Caroline's mother suffers from Alzheimer's disease; her father has hired Mexican immigrant Amador to help care for her. Meanwhile, the twins' half-sister, Marlene, and Amador's young son, Rogelio, are also on journeys to fill the void their fathers have left. All paths lead to a single home in L.A., where each individual re-examines the meaning of family.
Sample of prose: "The dementia introduced itself gently over the past five years, then suddenly foisted itself upon her during the last nine months like a pushy party guest at one of those long-ago affairs, standing too close, demanding her attention. Her lifetime is cleaving open, and he is being allowed a glimpse inside the seams and chasms of her past. As Eleanor unravels her hidden history, he realizes that he does not know her or his marriage more emphatically, only more sadly."
Author reminds me of: Mona Simpson and Louise Erdrich, who also show us the many faces and bonds of family.
Best reason to read: Silver aptly and sensitively captures the small moments of life that comprise the whole. Her deft portrayal of the wise-beyond-their-ages children and the ailing grandmother lends a powerful poignancy to the story.
-Joan Hinkemeyer
Norma Ever After
By Nancy Baxter (Ballantine, 320 pages, $13.95).
Plot in a nutshell: Dale grew up with an inferiority complex, the result of looking more like Betty Boop than Cindy Crawford. When her father dies and leaves her a pile of cash, she decides to escape her humdrum life with a trip to her father's favorite place, Scotland's Orkney Islands. After she falls in love with a local artist, she's forced to confront her lifelong fears about her inadequacies.
Sample of prose: "The cute guy would always be off with Ashley or Jessica or one of the other girls whose mothers had not cursed them with a bad name or used up all the good genes on their popular and happy sisters."
Author reminds me of: The anti-Barbara Cartland
Best reason to read: For those who love romances but get nauseous at their purple prose, this book offers a rare treat: a literate love story featuring a heroine who changes and grows as satisfyingly as her counterparts in "serious" novels.
-Vicky Uhland
Stop that girl
By Elizabeth McKenzie (Random House, 207 pages, $22.95).
Plot in a nutshell: This lively coming-of-age novel follows Ann from the time she is an imaginative 8-year-old until adulthood. Structured as a series of chapters, each detailing a new age and new adventures, the book observes Ann's role in her nontraditional family, her adaptation to her crazy grandmother called Dr. Frost, and her relationships with friends, boyfriends and employers.
Sample of prose: "Now I know we'll never go to the back-to-school sales and get the white vinyl boots everyone's wearing. I want them more than I've ever wanted anything. Mom says no, partly because of my misdeed, but also because my feet can't breathe. I want to go shopping, but we never do; no matter how much I squirm and stand lopsided, my mother measures me and makes my clothes instead. They're made out of strange fabrics . . . and they hang on me like sandwich boards. Luckily my friends think I wear them to be funny."
Author reminds me of: Pat Devoto, who wrote the spritely coming-of-age novel My Last Days as Roy Rogers.
Best reason to read: Ann is an engaging heroine with keen observations and self-deprecating humor. Through her, McKenzie explores the myriad dynamics of family and friendship in evocative and graceful prose.
-Joan Hinkemeyer
Tokyo Cancelled
By Rana Dasgupta (Black Cat, 400 pages, $13).
Plot in a nutshell: Thirteen passengers are stranded at an airport on their way to Tokyo. To pass the night, they tell each other stories that take the form of modern fairy tales: Robert De Niro's son masters the transubstantiation of matter and uses it against his enemies; an Indian billionaire trades his son's life to save his daughter; a wingless bird leads a Ukrainian merchant to a lost lover; a Parisian changeling sacrifices his immortality for a friend. Each story is riveting and transformatory, leading the reader into geographically and morally diverse mini-worlds.
Sample of prose: "The moon was so bright that the streets seemed to be bathed in an eerie kind of underexposed daylight that was even more pellucid for the absolute quiet."
Author reminds me of: A.S. Byatt.
Best reason to read: It's not often you come across a collection of modern fairy tales, particularly ones that are so well written and imaginative.
-Vicky Uhland
The Traveler
By John Twelve Hawks (Doubleday, 400 pages, $24.95).
Plot in a nutshell: A secret society known as the Tabula aims to control mankind using the invisible technology surrounding the modern world - "the grid." In the past, the Tabula has attempted to eradicate Travelers (those who can travel to other dimensions a la Matrix-style out of body experiences) because of their threat to the grid's goals. But they now believe that Travelers, almost extinct, can help them reach the next step of evolutionary and technological advances, and, thus, they must find the last two Travelers and bring them in.
Meanwhile, a group known as the Harlequins are the protectors of the Travelers. Maya, who previously renounced her role as a Harlequin, is trying to live a normal life when her father summons her to Prague, and instructs her to leave her life in London and find the brothers who are now in grave danger and must be saved in order to save society.
When a man hunting the brothers for the Tabula follows Maya to the United States, all hell breaks loose.
Sample of prose: "Vicki decided to make a fruit salad while Hollis fried grilled-cheese sandwiches. She liked standing at the counter and slicing up the strawberries. It was uncomfortable to sit next to Maya. The Harlequin looked exhausted, but she couldn't seem to relax. Vicki thought that it would be painful to go through life always being ready to kill, always expecting to be attacked . . . 'You told me a few things about Travelers when we were in the van,' Gabriel said to Maya. 'But what about the rest of it? Tell me about the Harlequins.' Maya adjusted the cord on her sword's carrying case. 'Harlequins protect Travelers. That's all you need to know.'"
Author reminds me of: George Orwell meets The Matrix meets Minority Report meets Dean Koontz.
Best reason to read: In the same wondrous way Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife) allows readers to suspend disbelief and become fully engrossed in a fantastical novel, Hawks accomplishes the total immersion of his reader. His debut is a fast-paced, exciting thriller, postulating the potential of living in a high-tech age, where government, business and anyone else with enough of an interest can control your destiny and everyday life. Full of action, suspense, intriguing characters and numerous plot twists, this book will grip even those who don't enjoy fantasy or speculative fiction.
-Justin Matott
Twins
By Marcy Dermansky (Morrow, 304 pages, $21.95).
Author's background: Dermansky's short stories have appeared in numerous publications, including McSweeney's. She's a film critic for About.com and lives in Astoria, NY.
Plot in a nutshell: Twins Chloe and Sue tell their story in alternating voices, both struggling in very different ways with two-times the identity issues most teenagers face.
Chloe, the "golden" twin, is the object of Sue's obsession. Sue seethes in her growing stew of both worship and hatred of her sister. Sue is defiant, angry, anti-social and thinks "they" should be everything each other needs, excluding family, friends and any activities that may disturb their sanctuary relationship. As Chloe starts to move out socially, Sue acts out in bizarre ways. Chloe wants desperately to establish her own identity, causing Sue to increase in bizarre behavior.
The story includes the twins' rich, detached, divorcing lawyer parents, who treat them interchangeably; a manipulative, aspiring and spoiled model; her famous basketball star father who takes an interest in Chloe; troublemaking boyfriends, and college students who add an unexpected dimension to Sue's life. Through the twins' journey toward adulthood, they strangely find their own "voices" by actually becoming interchangeable in some ways.
Sample of prose: (Sue): "School...had always been a disaster for me. I was in preschool the first time I got in trouble, for trying to color orange spots on the class hamster with a Magic Marker. But Chloe had always liked it. She had always been a Goody Two-shoes, climbing onto our kindergarten teacher's lap during story time. I hated school more than I hated Chloe. Kids called me queer because I liked to wear men's extra-large shirts. The kids sucked, the teachers sucked, the homework sucked."
Author reminds me of: Go Ask Alice's diary entries and the dysfunctional relationships on the HBO series Six Feet Under - compelling, dark and like a traffic accident that you try to look away from, only to find your gaze returning with odd fascination.
Best reason to read: This well-written book gives readers a voyeuristic, insiders' glimpse into the lives of not only twins, but teenagers. Though at times uncomfortable, the novel is comically and darkly entertaining.
-Justin Matott