I’ve been buying second (or maybe 3rd or 4th) hand copies of Paul Zindel novels. Confessions of a Teenage Baboon is the first one to arrive. It’s absolutely not what I expected it to be, but I really liked it. It has a ‘hopelessness with a shimmer of hope nonetheless’ that I think must have been rare at the time it was written. It certainly is rare to find nowadays. Also, it amazes me once again how much was possible in the 70s… This is something you also see in TV-series or in movies. Show a boob on TV today and it’s 16+ and a guy who’s smoking is always the bad guy of course. But here there is some really crazy shit going on, which I am sure would land this book on some ‘watchlist’ today. And even though it’s clear that this book wasn’t written today, it’s pretty timeless as well. Good stuff.
After reading The Free, I’m also on a Willy Vlautin kick. Good thing we have them all lying around here. The Motel Life, Vlautin’s debut is up next.
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