Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | FICTION SEI | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
Stella Parrish is seventeen, attractive, smart, deeply alienated, and unable to countenance life's absurdities. She is not nihilistic; she is prematurely exhausted. Since her parents OD'd on designer drugs when she was eleven, she has lived with well-meaning but inexperienced foster parents, while her grandfather, her only living relative, tries ever more ingenious ways of committing suicide in his retirement home. Here are the last two weeks of Stella's senior year in Orange County, California: the intensive AP final exams; the childish, celebratory trips; the totemic importance attached to graduation. Beneath Stella's mordantly funny take on her life is the decisiveness with which she disengages from it, planting clues and providing explanations for those who will try to understand the act she is about to commit. With perfect pitch, remarkable wit, and a spare, vivid prose, Stella turns her farewell to suburbia into a wry philosophical inquiry.
Author Notes
ANDREA SEIGEL is the author of Like the Red Panda. Twenty-six years old, she's currently working on her MFA from Bennington College and lives in Los Angeles.
Excerpts
Excerpts
FRIDAY, JUNE 13This afternoon in drama (I'm taking it because Mrs. Amis said I needed to show interest in the arts on my transcript, and I can't draw) I was supposed to be throwing a fake beach ball up and down, but I just couldn't do it anymore. Last semester I was ready to drop out the day Mr. Nichols made us have fake arguments with our scene partners and Danielle Reinhardt theater-slapped me for "stealing her boyfriend" when everybody knows she's a lesbian. I was there onstage, realizing the complete pointlessness of debating about things that don't exist as she slammed me across the side of my face and forgot to cup her hand the right way. My eye was throbbing so I turned to Mr. Nichols midscene and said, "Can I please go to the nurse?" because I honestly thought I might have a broken blood vessel. But he just said, "Tell it to Danielle! Tell her how you feel!" I wanted to give him the evil eye, but couldn't, and thought to myself, "Tomorrow I'm getting a drop slip."But then Mrs. Amis, my counselor, said that Princeton probably wouldn't look favorably upon my dropping a class three months into the semester, especially since I had written my personal statement about "my love of performance" (the topic being in no way my idea, sorry). So I went back to drama the next day and played fake tennis and did depressing monologues about the circus and generally dealt with it. But then today, when Mr. Nichols told me that my beach ball wasn't going high enough (and considering that it's invisible, how did he know?), I knew I was done. That's it. There comes a point when you're just too exhausted to pretend to have fun at a beach that doesn't exist.So, essentially, I let the ball drop. Ha. Ha. Ha. And when I did, the smell of the room hit me. That smell that seems to come straight from the hard orange carpet that they like to put in all the classrooms. It's the smell of countless sweaty high school bodies and the nervous energy that emanates from their armpits whenever they're put on the spot. And I looked over at John Steiner's acne, which is the kind that's so deep under the skin that you want to rush the kid to the emergency room before his face dies. His forehead and nose were so shiny under those hot lights and he was smiling up at his fake ball, beaming, and I just couldn't take his naive optimism. John looked like he was having the most fantastic, perfect, idyllic fake day at the beach I ever saw. I don't want to be too mean, and I hope he never reads this, but the guy exhausted me.So as Mr. Nichols stood next to John asking what color his ball was, I started to back toward the corner where the piano sits. Somewhere in my mind I heard John happily yelling, "It's rainbow colored!" but mostly the blood was rushing to my brain as the extreme stress of being somewhat bad hit me. I ducked down behind the piano, my heart beating ridiculously fast. I've never even gotten a U (unsatisfactory) in P.E. and I never talk when a teacher is talking. No Excerpted from Like the Red Panda by Andrea Seigel All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.