LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Yearn, Baby, Yearn: Marc Acito's How I Paid for College |
byEmily Lloyd |
It's 1983, and high-school senior Edward Zanniequal parts fabulous, talented, and vulnerable is stuck. After a pyrotechnic nervous breakdown the admissions panel mistakes for a genius-level audition, he's accepted into Juilliard's prestigious acting program. The problem? Dad doesn't want to shell out for a major he considers frivolous; mom's been "finding herself" in Peru for years, and Edward can barely bring in $3.00 an hour at the local Chicken Lickin'. Edward's depressedso depressed that he doesn't even want to remember how it feels so he can use it later in his acting.
Enter his friends, whose talents range from creative vandalism (giving makeovers to regrettable lawn ornaments) to embezzlement (for a good cause). They're the kind of pals that come into your life like walking blessings, ones that will break your finger with a hammer to get you out of P.E.; bake you brownies after you accidentally call your father a "shit-for-brains pussy-whipped toad" during an audition, and discreetly, non-judgmentally, explain to you that "you only drink Coke or Pepsi with meat and pork...with chicken or fish you drink 7-Up or Sprite." Between rehearsals for Grease and Godspell and not-so-secretly obsessing over each other sexually, they plunge into fraud, forgery, and blackmail in a desperate quest for Edward's tuition. Fans of Acito's humor column will be surprised: high school according to Marc is even funnier than The Gospel According to Marc. The book is chock-full of poke-your-sleeping-partner-awake-because-you-absolutely-have-to-share-this-passage-NOW with him or her moments. Also helpful tips: for example, mumbling "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" into her crotch while going down on a girl for the first time can make you seem like a real pro. [Reviewer's note: This works when it isn't the first time, too.] How I Got Into College does even more for high school musical theatre than American Pie did for band camp. It's moving, too, thoughat least as moving as it is funnyand that's what lifts a novel that includes an offstage cameo from Sinatra, a woman who calls her son "Maya Angelou" (well, really "My Angelo"), and a heck of a lot of dressing up as priests and nuns high above slapstick. Acito masterfully captures the chief activity of teenagers: yearning, both physically and intellectually. Everyone is hopeful; everyone's sense of self is tender. Egos get inflated and popped more rapidly than condoms at a bachelor party. And, in a gay piano bar called Something For the Boys, Edward finds his corner of the sky. Step intono, step-ball-change intothis book. Reminisce, regret, yearn, laugh, remember how your first gay crush felt; remember how your first standing ovation felt. Get extra copies for your teenage nieces, nephews, mentees, sons, or daughters, toothis is the kind of book they'll pull a high school career's worth of private jokes from, and carry around in their backpacks just so they can be close to it at all times. Emily Lloyd can be scrutinized at www.geocities.com/emilylloyd.geo. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 14, No. 13 September 17, 2004 |