by Caryl Rivers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 30, 1984
Motley episodes from senior year at a parochial high school in the mid-1950s--with too much Porky's-style farce, too much unearned sentimentality, but a fair measure of genuinely amusing, authentic (if familiar) recollection. The narrator is Peggy Morrison, school-newspaper standout at Maryland's Immaculate Heart High. Her best chum is literary, almost sophisticated Constance Marie Wepplener, a source of sex education for innocent Peggy. (""When I met Con, freshman year, I thought an orgasm was some kind of big monkey."") Through the year, however, Peggy finds herself more and more preoccupied with childhood pal and longtime necking partner Sean McCaffrey, who--despite being handsome and (within firm bounds) amorous--is all set to start priesthood training after graduation. And the most strained, slapsticky vignettes here involve the cartoonish doings of Sean's puritanical, rightwing father: together with a mad monk, Dr. McCaffrey stages an anti-cleavage assault on the dress department at the local store (""We are examining your frocks to see which ones the Blessed Mother would approve""); he joins a mad White Russian cossack in a virulent, racist, anti-Communist rally. Meanwhile, too, the young folk are staging intentionally--effortfully--comic stunts: Scan poses as a girl to attend a foolish beware-of-sex lecture (and is lecherously pawed by a crudestereotype hypocrite); somewhat more original is the kids' creation of a fake St. Leon (as in Trotsky) for the newspaper's obligatory ""Saint's Corner"" column. But journalist Rivers (Aphrodite at Mid-Century) does much better in the non-farcical, more credibly humorous/raunchy moments--mostly involving Con and Peggy's ambivalent quest to lose their virginity, with awkward help from a couple of Annapolis students. (Con succeeds, but with medical-emergency side effects; Peggy recoils from her exhibitionistic swains, ultimately sharing first sex with tender Scan . . . who'll nevertheless go to his priestly doom.) And though Rivers' attempts to inject a few serious moments--a classmate suicide, the death of Peggy's father, the brutality of Con's father--are limp and incongruous, there's enough closely-observed, likable/earthy material here to please the looser contingent within the Catholic-adolescence readership.
Pub Date: Aug. 30, 1984
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: N/A
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1984
Categories: FICTION
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.