Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl

A quick, very funny, and occasionally touchingly romp through the life of fourteen year old Sam Simon and his vain pursuit of the beautiful and bodacious Berry Mansfield at Concor . . . er, Little prep school in the early 70's. At the outset, Sam feels lucky and popular as he is one of the first male admittees to the school. Michaelis should write more books like this one and fewer biographies. You gotta love the hippie art school teacher just returned from maternity leave who makes homemade ice cream with her own breast milk. A bit of trivia: one of the pivotal scenes in The Great Gatsby, object of Sam's obsession in Green Dreams, involves a character known as "young Michaelis, the Greek".

I bought this on a whim in a used bookstore, not expecting too much. As it turned out, the book was one of the best "coming of age" novels I've ever read -- full of unexpected twists, complex and frustratingly ambiguous relationships, and powerful visual images described in just enough detail to resonate, yet just vaguely enough that what exactly makes them so effective remains elusive. Coming out of it, I felt like I knew the characters, had experienced severe crushes on most of the protagonist's kaleidoscopically varying objects of affection. A year later, certain passages still haunt me, and I feel nostalgia for these places I've never been to. Lest I sound too drippy, keep in mind that Michaelis is also the kind of writer who uses words like "incunabular," and there's a whole scene involving a character reading so much F. Scott Fitzgerald he starts talking in 20s slang and attempting to sally forth. It works on all levels, not just the directly emotional. It's brilliant, really.