by Kevin Canty
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by Kevin Canty
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by Kevin Canty
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by Kevin Canty
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by Joshua Ferris
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Opposites attract in this story of young lovers who find that they aren't so opposite at all. A religious youth retreat serves as the meeting place for 17-year-olds Kenny Kolodny and Junie Williamson. Kenny's mother is a mental patient and his father is a raging alcoholic. Junie's are successful professionals. While Kenny is a pot smoker who lives in a filthy apartment and drives a beat-up station wagon, Junie lives in a Frank Lloyd Wright house in the suburbs and drives a bright red Honda Accord. But Junie has seen her own hard times and has just returned from a stay in a psychiatric hospital. The two find they share many of the same insecurities, doubts, and troubles, and as they struggle with feelings of detachment from the world, they create a safe place in which to cross into adulthood together.
From Publishers Weekly
As he demonstrated in his praised short-story collection, A Stranger in This World, Canty has a gift for expressing the emotions of lonely, unmoored people. In this tensely controlled and keenly observed first novel, he evokes the bliss, uncertainty and pain of teenage love in an age of sexual freedom, drugs and parental irresponsibility. The protagonist, Kenny Kolodny, is a bright 17-year-old who smokes pot, neglects his schoolwork and strives to hide his bewilderment and vulnerability. Kenny's parents are divorced. His mother is in a mental institution; his father, with whom Kenny lives in a seedy apartment in Washington, D.C., is an abusive alcoholic. Forced to cope with his father's rages, and later to care for him after he has a stroke, Kenny knows he's been robbed of his childhood. What's worse, he can't imagine any future for himself. Kenny recognizes a similarly troubled soul in Junie Williamson, whose two suicide attempts reflect the kind of dysfunctional family life that can occur in a Frank Lloyd Wright house in the affluent suburbs. Though Kenny knows he's considered socially inferior to the Williamsons, he also knows that Junie is "damaged goods" and thus perhaps not utterly unattainable. To his surprise, he feels genuine love for her, and she for him, and for a while they connect deeply. But their breakup is as inevitable as Kenny's persistent sense of failure. There is remarkable integrity in Canty's depiction of adolescents' secret erotic lives, and of their perceived lack of control that even sexual intimacy does not dispel. Though this is a somber story, there are no cheap effects or melodramatic developments. Canty never forces its heartbreaking truths, which he expresses with elegant restraint and unflinching honesty. First serial to D magazine; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
Opposites attract in this story of young lovers who find that they aren't so opposite at all. A religious youth retreat serves as the meeting place for 17-year-olds Kenny Kolodny and Junie Williamson. Kenny's mother is a mental patient and his father is a raging alcoholic. Junie's are successful professionals. While Kenny is a pot smoker who lives in a filthy apartment and drives a beat-up station wagon, Junie lives in a Frank Lloyd Wright house in the suburbs and drives a bright red Honda Accord. But Junie has seen her own hard times and has just returned from a stay in a psychiatric hospital. The two find they share many of the same insecurities, doubts, and troubles, and as they struggle with feelings of detachment from the world, they create a safe place in which to cross into adulthood together.
From Publishers Weekly
As he demonstrated in his praised short-story collection, A Stranger in This World, Canty has a gift for expressing the emotions of lonely, unmoored people. In this tensely controlled and keenly observed first novel, he evokes the bliss, uncertainty and pain of teenage love in an age of sexual freedom, drugs and parental irresponsibility. The protagonist, Kenny Kolodny, is a bright 17-year-old who smokes pot, neglects his schoolwork and strives to hide his bewilderment and vulnerability. Kenny's parents are divorced. His mother is in a mental institution; his father, with whom Kenny lives in a seedy apartment in Washington, D.C., is an abusive alcoholic. Forced to cope with his father's rages, and later to care for him after he has a stroke, Kenny knows he's been robbed of his childhood. What's worse, he can't imagine any future for himself. Kenny recognizes a similarly troubled soul in Junie Williamson, whose two suicide attempts reflect the kind of dysfunctional family life that can occur in a Frank Lloyd Wright house in the affluent suburbs. Though Kenny knows he's considered socially inferior to the Williamsons, he also knows that Junie is "damaged goods" and thus perhaps not utterly unattainable. To his surprise, he feels genuine love for her, and she for him, and for a while they connect deeply. But their breakup is as inevitable as Kenny's persistent sense of failure. There is remarkable integrity in Canty's depiction of adolescents' secret erotic lives, and of their perceived lack of control that even sexual intimacy does not dispel. Though this is a somber story, there are no cheap effects or melodramatic developments. Canty never forces its heartbreaking truths, which he expresses with elegant restraint and unflinching honesty. First serial to D magazine; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
See all Editorial Reviews
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6
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- Winslow in Love by Kevin Canty in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- Creating Character Emotions by Ann Hood on page 65, and page 70
- Sleepaway by Eric Simonoff in Back Matter
- Bestial Noise: The Tin House Fiction Reader by Tin House in Back Matter
- The Bastard on the Couch: 27 Men Try Really Hard to Explain Their Feelings About Love, Loss, Fatherhood, and Freedom by Daniel Jones on page 277
See all 6 books citing this book
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