KELLY 'N' ME

Two Manhattan teenagers in a bittersweet summer romance: Anthony finds that his mother, a narcissistic over-the-hill actress, has become too dependent on both alcohol and her son since his father left for L.A. and another woman; Kelly is rebelling against her parents' Fifth Avenue lifestyle and the frenetic trendiness of her former crowd by masquerading as a janitor's daughter and using her parents' credit cards to provide handouts for street people. Both amateur street-musicians, Anthony and Kelly meet in Central Park and team up. Wanting to be valued for herself, Kelly doesn't tell Anthony who she really is until she's hurt in a mugging. Their romance ends almost before it begins when Kelly's parents return from Europe and violently disapprove of how she's spent her summer (and their money). She runs away to San Francisco; Anthony, who planned to go with her, has to stay behind when his mother goes on a particularly bad binge. This sad story about the many ways parents can fail their children ends on a hopeful note, of sorts: Anthony is determined to confront his mother and force her to get help; Kelly has escaped her domineering parents, as well as her self-destructive lifestyle. As in Levoy's Alan and Naomi (1977) and A Shadow Like a Leopard (1981), the plot is relatively simple; but the complex characters and powerfully drawn setting command attention. (Fiction. 12+)