I bought this book over a year ago at Powell's in Portland. I rescued it from the bargain bin, where they had slapped an embarassing $5.98 sale sticker on the cover. Unfamiliar with Darcey Steinke or the book itself, I bought it because I loved the graphic design on the front! Anyway, once we got home I promptly forgot about the damn thing, I have books everywhere...it just got buried. A week ago I unearthed this disturbing little slice of literary pie and I couldn't put it down.

Anyone who wasn't one of the popular kids in school will strongly connect with this book. Mothers will be disgusted and frightened. Surburban dwellers will wonder...what IS going on over at the Joneses?? And what is my role in what goes on over there?

I connected with this story on so many levels. The descriptions of alienation and pain were sorely familiar...Good thing Steinke didn't write this until 1997, if I'd read this in high school I might have offed myself. It's that bitter.

Ginger and her minister father are living in a bleak, unnamed southern city. (I imagined Conroe as I was reading this.)  They are both in post-traumatic stress mode, still trying to deal with the death of Ginger's mother from cancer. Mama did NOT go quietly into that goodnight. The church bigwigs want Ginger's father out of the pulpit, he's not hip enough to attract more people to the church, and- gasp!- preaches social responsibility! Ginger is in turn pitied and despised by the church. She's not a role model, running around with some death metal cum devil worshipper types and coming to church still smelling of sex and pot.
Then there is Sandy Patrick, a young girl who was kidnapped from summer camp...

The language Steinke uses is wonderfully musical, even when it is at it's most profane. You find yourself reading certain passages over and over, just because they strike just the right cords lyrically. And as the action becomes more brutal, the writing becomes more surreal and fantastic.

I highly recommend this book. At only 272 pages, it's a swift kick in the stomach that will have you internally bleeding for weeks. For those of you who don't like to read and this will be your first book, didja ever see River's Edge or Over the Edge or The Ice Storm (which is also a pretty good book)...this book is like those movies but BETTER because the pictures are created in your mind...

For those of you who want to join my exclusive book club, I am reading Gore Vidal's Julian.