- Hardcover: 341 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Canada / Fiction (Nov 4 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0688170943
- ISBN-13: 978-0688170943
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 590 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #361,875 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Memoirist Stahl (Permanent Midnight) breaks into fiction with this sharp novel, which starts as a tale of wisecracking teenage malcontents and ends as blazing testament to the human ability to endure pain. The narrator, prematurely jaded 15-year-old Pennsylvania prep-schooler Bobby Stark, begins his saga on the night in 1970 when he loses his virginity. Two older boys introduce him to the local barber's compliant daughter, and they are enjoying her favors, gang-bang style, when they're discovered by her drunken fatherAwho brands Bobby with a tattoo. Expelled from school, Bobby returns to his native Pittsburgh and his pill-popping, alcoholic mother, who's inconsolable over the recent suicide of Bobby's father. Desperate to escape, Bobby spots Michelle Burnelka, a girl he's adored since kindergarten, singing Hare Krishna chants at the Pittsburgh airport. He tracks her down, learns that she is fleeing the cult, and the two decide to hitchhike to San Francisco. They travel first with an eccentric older couple, and then get a ride with Meat and Varnish, two predatory junkies who drug and trap the teens in their Lincoln Continental for a night of verbal, sexual and psychological abuse. This grim, drawn-out scene darkens the tone considerably after the sometimes glib buoyancy of the early chapters. Stahl spikes his protagonist's drug-addled adolescence with sardonic sagacity; his embodiments of middle-class despair (Bobby's mother), youthful ambiguous rebellion (Michelle) and sensitivity masked with sarcasm (Bobby) are lucid through the haze. But when excruciating brutality erupts, the novel goes haywire, nearly capsizing under the powerful horrors. However, Stahl pulls the story together with tender, erotic surprises and poignant emotional transformations. While the tale is risky in its darkness, and sometimes swerves into cartoonish violence, Bobby's honest voice pierces through the chaos and makes for a memorably harrowing journey. Author tour. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
It was 1970. Woodstock was over, Nixon was in the White House, and the Vietnam War continued full steam ahead. This is the backdrop for Perv, Stahl's excellent first novel about adolescence, tacky sex, lots of drugs, and a horrifying cast of misfit parents and predatory adults. The early 1970s provides convenient wallpaper, but this book could be set any time in postwar America. Bobby Stark, the 16-year-old hero, finds himself back home in Pittsburgh after being thrown out of prep school. With the public schools on strike, he's stuck at home with his pill-popping mother and her creepy crowd of misfit boyfriends. A chance encounter with a grade-school acquaintance, a disenchanted Hare Krishna named Michelle, gives him a chance to go on the road and into even more perilous situations. This is black comedy at its darkest--alternately funny, poignant, and neurotically absurd. At some points, Stahl goes over the top, and his self-indulgence becomes painfully unpalatable. But overall, it's a worthwhile trip back into teenage nightmares. Ted Leventhal
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Oh, Jerry Stahl, Jerry Stahl...,
By
This review is from: Perv--A Love Story (Paperback)
I guess I liked this.... I guess? I'm just kind of confused. I mean, I didn't not like it, but it wasn't the best. I suppose I was just a bit disappointed after reading Permanent Midnight and then reading this. Permanent Midnight was SO good! It was SO good, and after I finished, I couldn't wait to get my unsanitary hands all over another one of Mr. Stahl's books. So I bought this one. I don't know, it was okay. I just think he could've done better. I just didn't really like a couple of the characters. Tennie Toad was stupid. I didn't like that kid. I wanted to smack him around and call him Penny and ask "Do ya lak that?" Hahaha. I didn't like either of the Schmidlaps. Mr. S. reminded me of this psycho old guy that is stalking me over the internet. I can imagine them to have the same voice. And they both seem like drunken idiots. I did like the ending. It wasn't what you'd expect or anything. It wasn't a happy, happy ending, but it wasn't sad. It was just fine. Well, it was kind of sad. I don't know. And this book was very interesting. I think I finished it in about a day and a half; it usually takes me a 1.5 or 2 weeks to complete a book, for I never seem to make time. I am such a busy girl! Anyway, the good does outweigh the bad. So, if you want to read this AND Permanent Midnight, read this first. You will enjoy this so much better, and your reading adventures will be much more exciting and fulfilling, or something.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nothing like being smacked in the head...,
By jmz "jzarate12" (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Perv: A Love Story (Hardcover)
Perv: A Love Story does just that. You have to get through three quarters of the book to understand what I'm talking about, but you'll get it. You think the beginning is shocking? You think anything in the middle is disturbing? Just wait until the end. Based on the graphic details of what occurs to Bobby and Michelle with their, let's call them, captors, I can only assume Mr. Stahl has been there and done that. Overall, it was a funny and sad story, but I don't think Stahl wants us to feel sorry for the main character. As stated in the book at some point, there's empathy and there's sympathy. I think Stahl wants us to empathize with the characters but to just stand back a minute and not get too close. Recommended for those that aren't uptight. If you are, you won't even get through the first couple of pages.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Wow writing, yucky story!,
By
This review is from: Perv--A Love Story (Paperback)
Yes, the writing is terrific. Stahl used his literary techniques extremely well here. But the story... ugh. As a learning experience in different styles of writing, this book is a winner. If you're reading for a good story, pick something else. This one is gruesome and violent.
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