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Evan Shively (Perseus271)

For all of those who keep insisting that Stephen King is a literary equivalent of Big Mac and fries, writing in the comfortable confines of the frequently-despised 'genre' - please take a look at The Body: The Fall from Innocence, which is much more familiar to public in the quite faithful adaptation by Rob Reiner - 'Stand by Me'. It's not King's trademark horror; it is actually free of the constraints of any so-called 'genre'. It is a coming-of-age character-study novella set in 1960 Maine where monsters are not hiding behind bushes but instead live in the hearts of people - the setting and themes at which King excels.************This is a story of four boys on the brink of adolescence; \
  the last moments of childhood told with occasional almost Bradbury-esque nostalgia but with the rose-tinted glasses mercilessly torn off.\
 The blue-collar childhood in a small Maine town in 1960 is not a place of magic and wonder - these boys are no strangers to abandonment and abuse and prejudice. Hot-tempered and volatile Teddy Duchamp has been physically mutilated by his mentally ill father whom he still worships. Childish and not-too-bright Vern Tessio lives in fear of his brother. Gordie Lachance, whose adult writer self is telling us this story, is little but a stranger to his parents who never got over the death of his older brother. Smart and tough Chris Chambers, a kid from a family that supplies Castle Rock with alcoholics and juvenile delinquents, is being seriously abused by his father and is seen as a worthless and even dangerous person because of his family."Chris didn't talk much about his dad, but we all knew he hated him like poison. Chris was marked up every two weeks or so, bruises on his cheeks and neck or one eye swelled up and as colorful as a sunset, and once he came to school with a big clumsy bandage on the back of his head. Other times he never got to school at all. His mom would call him in sick because he was too lamed up to come in. Chris was smart, really smart, but he played truant a lot, and Mr. Halliburton, the town truant officer, was always showing up at Chris's house, driving his old black Chevrolet with the NO RIDERS sticker in the corner of the windshield. If Chris was being truant and Bertie (as we called him - always behind his back, of course) caught him, he would haul him back to school and see that Chris got detention for a week. But if Bertie found out that Chris was home because his father had beaten the shit out of him, Bertie just went away and didn't say boo to a cuckoo bird. It never occurred to me to question this set of priorities until about twenty years later."But childhood, even though not at all sheltered, still gives them something of a shield against the world - that sense of invulnerability that only the young children have, the love for adventure, and the protection of sincere and lighthearted friendship."Everything was there and around us. We knew exactly who we were and exactly where we were going. It was grand." **********But we meet them right at the time when they are about to leave the protection of childhood behind them, when in the miserably hot summer of 1960 they set out on a trip to find a body of a boy who disappeared in the woods - a trip that makes at least two of them go through quite significant emotional turmoil and reevaluate their priorities and see the strengthening of one friendship while the others fall apart as the realization sets in that there is more to friendship than just fun and leisure. This is a trip that uncovers both the steel and the vulnerability in the characters of Chris and Gordie, and shoves them from the haven of childhood into the world where things take work and sacrifice and pain, the world that is often cruel and cynical and unavoidable."But he said: "Your friends drag you down, Gordie. Don't you know that? [...] Your friends do. They're like drowning guys that are holding onto your legs. You can't save them. You can only drown with them."****This is a scary realization when you are young - that your friends are not good for you. I remember getting that feeling at around twelve, the age the boys in this book are, and I remember how unsettling that realization was. At that time it feels like friendships are forever, and that things that connect you to other people are there to stay - and realizing how easy and even necessary it can be to break those bonds is quite unsettling. "You always know the truth, because when you cut yourself or someone else with it, there's always a bloody show."******And some of this is present here - but on the other hand we are also treated to the strengthening of the true friendship between Gordie and Chris. Gordie, a kid who is emotionally neglected by his family, acutely feels the sincerity and kindness that Chris brings into the world, despite his 'tough' origins - Chris, the center of this ragtag group, is grown up beyond his years, and has some hard-earned wisdom for his twelve years of age, sprinkled with a bit of pain and bitterness but grounded in common sense."But it was only survival. We were clinging to each other in deep water. I've explained about Chris, I think; my reasons for clinging to him were less definable. His desire to get away from Castle Rock and out of the mill's shadow seemed to me to be my best part, and I could not just leave him to sink or swim on his own. If he had drowned, that part of me would have drowned with him, I think."**********I love the narrative voice of this story - the narration by a young but accomplished writer Gordon Lachance, bringing the perspective that the few decades that have passed since that summer of 1960 have given him - but yet conveying the feelings and the attitudes of a twelve-year-old boy who feels both resentment and love and experiences profound beauty and the low of human ugliness. There are lyrical parts and trademark-King unflinching gory parts, and social commentary without the slightest sugar-coating. The story is peppered in places with the stories written by older Gordon and full of reflections of the adult man reflecting on the important and defining experience of the end of his childhood. "The most important things are hardest to say, because words diminish them." It is a fascinating, engrossing read, the one that is well worth several hours of your time, even if you have never been a fan of King. 5 stars and highly recommend!

Todd Anderson and his friends at Welton Academy can hardly believe how different life is since their new English professor, the flamboyant John Keating, has challenged them to "make your lives extraordinary! " Inspired by Keating, the boys resurrect the Dead Poets Society--a secret club where, free from the constraints and expectations of school and parents, they let their passions run wild. As Keating turns the boys on to the great words of Byron, Shelley, and Keats, they discover not only the beauty of language, but the importance of making each moment count. But the Dead Poets pledges soon realize that their newfound freedom can have tragic consequences. Can the club and the individuality it inspires survive the pressure from authorities determined to destroy their dreams?

The shocking thing about the girls was how nearly normal they seemed when their mother let them out for the one and only date of their lives. Twenty years on, their enigmatic personalities are embalmed in the memories of the boys who worshipped them and who now recall their shared adolescence: the brassiere draped over a crucifix belonging to the promiscuous Lux; the sisters' breathtaking appearance on the night of the dance; and the sultry, sleepy street across which they watched a family disintegrate and fragile lives disappear.

'For a salesman, there is no rock bottom to life. He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine.'Willy Loman has been a salesman for 34 years. At 60, he is cast aside, his usefulness now exhausted. With no future to dream about he must face the crushing disappointments of his past. He takes one final brave action, but is he heroic at last?, or a self-deluding fool?

An American classic and great bestseller for over thirty years, A Separate Peace is timeless in its description of adolescence during a period when the entire country was losing its innocence to the second world war.Set at a boys boarding school in New England during the early years of World War II, A Separate Peace is a harrowing and luminous parable of the dark side of adolescence. Gene is a lonely, introverted intellectual. Phineas is a handsome, taunting, daredevil athlete. What happens between the two friends one summer, like the war itself, banishes the innocence of these boys and their world.A bestseller for more than thirty years, A Separate Peace is John Knowles crowning achievement and an undisputed American classic.

Tyrannical Nurse Ratched rules her ward in an Oregon State mental hospital with a strict and unbending routine, unopposed by her patients, who remain cowed by mind-numbing medication and the threat of electric shock therapy. But her regime is disrupted by the arrival of McMurphy – the swaggering, fun-loving trickster with a devilish grin who resolves to oppose her rules on behalf of his fellow inmates. His struggle is seen through the eyes of Chief Bromden, a seemingly mute half-Indian patient who understands McMurphy's heroic attempt to do battle with the powers that keep them imprisoned. Ken Kesey's extraordinary first novel is an exuberant, ribald and devastatingly honest portrayal of the boundaries between sanity and madness.

In his blistering new novel, Cormac McCarthy returns to the Texas-Mexico border, the setting of his famed Border Trilogy. The time is our own, when rustlers have given way to drug-runners and small towns have become free-fire zones. One day, Llewellyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by a bodyguard of dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the law–in the person of aging, disillusioned Sheriff Bell–can contain.As Moss tries to evade his pursuers–in particular a mysterious mastermind who flips coins for human lives–McCarthy simultaneously strips down the American crime novel and broadens its concerns to encompass themes as ancient as the Bible and as bloodily contemporary as this morning’s headlines. No Country for Old Men is a triumph.

Two best friends set out on an adventure, but it soon turns around to a terrifying escape from being hunted by the police, as these two girls escape for the crimes they committed.

1991 drama movie directed by Ridley Scott

While navigating their careers in Los Angeles, a pianist and an actress fall in love while attempting to reconcile their aspirations for the future.

A middle-aged husband's life changes dramatically when his wife asks him for a divorce. He seeks to rediscover his manhood with the help of a newfound friend, Jacob, learning to pick up girls at bars.

A working-class Italian-American bouncer becomes the driver of an African-American classical pianist on a tour of venues through the 1960s American South.

During a vacation to Napa Valley, a group of long time friends reunite and revisit past choices in this hilarious and heartfelt comedy from director Amy Poehler.

American comedy film directed by Amy Poehler

On a weekend trip to Hawaii, a plastic surgeon convinces his loyal assistant to pose as his soon-to-be-divorced wife in order to cover up a careless lie he told to his much-younger girlfriend.

2011 romantic comedy movie directed by Dennis Dugan

Faced with an unplanned pregnancy, an offbeat young woman makes an unusual decision regarding the unborn child.

2007 American comedy-drama film directed by Jason Reitman

Will Hunting, a janitor at M.I.T., has a gift for mathematics, but needs help from a psychologist to find direction in his life.

As inventor Andy Brewster is about to embark on the road trip of a lifetime, a quick stop at his mom's house turns into an unexpected cross-country voyage with her along for the ride.

Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong and more than two million dollars in cash near the Rio Grande.

2007 film directed by Ethan and Joel Coen

Shy 14-year-old Duncan goes on summer vacation with his mother, her overbearing boyfriend, and her boyfriend's daughter. Having a rough time fitting in, Duncan finds an unexpected friend in Owen, manager of the Water Wizz water park.

Two highway road workers spend the summer of 1988 away from their city lives. The isolated landscape becomes a place of misadventure as the men find themselves at odds with each other and the women they left behind.

2013 comedy-drama film directed by David Gordon Green

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