AT TRAILS END: HOMECOMING

In Strother’s debut novel, four new students and a malcontent teacher disrupt the culture of a conservative high school.

“Dusty.” “Ink.” “Cowboy.” “Smoke.” The four newest sophomores at Trails End High School have one another…and the new nicknames they’ve just received from the less-than-welcoming assistant football coach. The accident-prone quartet quickly develops a reputation for nonconformity, which, in a small, football-loving East Texas town, is tantamount to sacrilege. Forced by the school to pick an extracurricular activity, the four elect to join the chess club, where they meet history teacher Paul Matthews, perhaps the only person who hates Trails End more than they do. Paul is only in Texas because he’s unqualified to teach anywhere else. The four boys pretend to form a rock band to get out of further school activities—they call themselves the OutlawX—and soon find themselves slated to perform at the school’s talent show. Will their new rock personas help them reverse their outcast reputations, or are they just setting themselves up for an even bigger failure? Strother’s prose is sharp and snarky, particularly the dialogue. He seems to take special pleasure in crafting the grouchy Paul’s rants: “There’s no such thing as external motivation. It’s only a scam perpetrated throughout history. The naïve belief that motivation is some sort of physical object, a commodity, wrapped up and sold like a pound of bacon.” The plot is mostly a vehicle for wry exchanges, as well as over-the-top editorials from the local newspaper, interspersed with some colorful high school antics. (The entire football team suffers from food poisoning at the homecoming dance.) There’s perhaps a bit too much of Paul and not enough of the OutlawX, but fans of Richard Russo (or even Garry Trudeau) will enjoy this lighthearted sendup of Texas high schools.

A chatty, satirical novel about the smallness of small towns.