Project X

Zusatztext “Shepard is masterly at setting up our heartbreak [and] is at his most brilliant in capturing the demented essence of junior high.”– The New York Times Book Review “An energetic and often wickedly funny story of alienation and revenge.” – Minneapolis Star-Tribune "Shepard obviously has a lock on the new American paranoia! and his voice should be essential reading. . . . Here is the effect of [Shepard's] books: A reader finishes them buzzing with awe! with respect! and yet! with a great deal of worry." – Chicago Tribune "Jim Shepard brings to his depiction of these lost boys a striking insight and even humor. They're so real! they nearly jump off the page into the nearest schoolyard! which makes it all the more chilling." – The Boston Globe Informationen zum Autor Jim Shepard Klappentext In the wilderness of junior high, Edwin Hanratty is at the bottom of the food chain. His teachers find him a nuisance. His fellow students consider him prey. And although his parents are not oblivious to his troubles, they can't quite bring themselves to fathom the ruthless forces that demoralize him daily. Sharing in these schoolyard indignities is his only friend, Flake. Branded together as misfits, their fury simmers quietly in the hallways, classrooms, and at home, until an unthinkable idea offers them a spectacular and terrifying release. From Jim Shepard, one of the most enduring and influential novelists writing today, comes an unflinching look into the heart and soul of adolescence. Tender and horrifying, prescient and moving, Project X will not easily be forgotten.First day of FS and where are my good green pants? In the wash. I have one pair of pants that aren’t clown pants and they’re in the wash. They haven’t been washed all summer but today, this morning, they’re in the wash. It’s too cold for cargoes and everything else in my drawer is Queer Nation, and sure enough I’m the only one on the bus in shorts. “Scorcher, isn’t it?” a ninth-grader asks when he goes by my locker. I’m standing there like I’m modeling beachwear. Kids across the hall chuckle and point. I almost head home right then. “FS, man,” Flake says when he sees my face. “I can’t take it,” I tell him. “It’s like, twenty minutes, and I can’t take it.” “Look at your face,” he says, and he has to laugh. He doesn’t mean it in a bad way. I put my head on my hands in my locker and try to tear the shelf off the wall. “FS,” he says. At least our first period classes are near each other. “FS,” I tell him back. We don’t even have homeroom together, though they told us over the summer we would. FS is fuckin’ school. We argue over who thought of it. My homeroom teacher has a big banner up on the bulletin board that says welcome to eighth grade! Underneath it there’s a sign that says leave no child unsuccessful and a handout for “eight ways of being smart.” In the doorway of first-period English my feet like freeze. I can’t even get into the room. I will not fucking do this, I think to myself. “What?” the English teacher says. We’re not in the same gym class, either. And his is fourth period and the first day stuff runs long, so there I am in the cafeteria without him. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, I go to myself, like some god’ll say, “Oh sorry, Hanratty, you want your only friend? I’ll send him along.” And who’s there: Hogan, Weensie, and all the other buttwipes who are always after me. The kid from Darien we call Dickhead who beat me with a plank last spring. He pulled it from his tree house, and his friends held me down. Flake said when he saw my back that I was lucky there were no nails in it. “Look who’s watching his figure,” the kid goes. I have like one milk pint on my tray. “Eat me,” I tell him. My eyes are tearing up and I want to pull them out and pound each of them flat on the tray....

Produktdetails

• Autoren: Jim Shepard
• Verlag: Vintage USA
• Sprache: Englisch
• Produktform: Taschenbuch
• Erschienen: 12.04.2005
• EAN: 9781400033485
• ISBN: 978-1-4000-3348-5
• Seiten: 176
• Abmessung: 132 mm x 205 mm x 14 mm
• Serien: Vintage Contemporaries; Vintage Contemporaries
• Thema: Belletristik > Erzählende Literatur