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Palo Alto: Stories Kindle Edition
James Franco’s story collection traces the lives of a group of teenagers as they experiment with vices of all kinds, struggle with their families and one another, and succumb to self-destructive, often heartless nihilism. In “Lockheed” a young woman’s summer—spent working a dull internship—is suddenly upended by a spectacular incident of violence at a house party. In “American History” a high school freshman attempts to impress a girl with a realistic portrayal of a slave owner during a classroom skit—only to have his feigned bigotry avenged. In “I Could Kill Someone,” a lonely teenager buys a gun with the aim of killing his high school tormentor, but begins to wonder about his bully’s own inner life.
These “spare and riveting” (O, The Oprah Magazine) stories are a compelling portrait of lives on the rough fringes of youth. Palo Alto is, “a collection of beautifully written stories” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) that “capture with perfect pitch the impossible exhilaration, the inevitable downbeatness, and the pure confusion of being an adolescent” (Elle).
Features a bonus essay by James Franco on Gia Coppola's film adaptation.
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Review
“Spare and riveting… Franco’s ear for juvenile vernacular is like an Ouija board summoning the lost voices of Generation Z.”—O, the Oprah Magazine
"Compelling and gutsy.”—Meghan O’Grady, Vogue
“Startling and original.”—The Economist
“[Franco] ends up perfectly mirroring the undulations of a teenage mind.”—The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
was with my cousin Jamie, who is gay. He goes to high school in Menlo Park, which is a five-minute drive. He is my only friend. He smokes menthol cigarettes.
After school I would go home. Me and Mom and Tim would watch Roseanne at the dinner table because Dad wasn’t there to say no.
Then Dad would come home and we would study. A lot of times my math tests were on Thursdays, so my dad and I would study extra long on Wednesdays, and I would miss Beverly Hills 90210. I never taped it.
I did so well in math class that I got this internship for the summer at Lockheed Martin. They make missiles and satellites. I was the only girl out of ten students who got selected.
My dad was very excited.
He said, “Marissa, one day you and I will work together.”
That summer, between my freshman and sophomore years, I worked for a Swedish guy named Jan, pronounced Yan. My job was to watch old film reels of the moon. There were hundreds. I worked in a cold, windowless basement. The reels would run from one spool to another on this old machine that looked like a tank. I was supposed to record blemishes and splices in the film. Sometimes the moon was full; sometimes it would get a little more full as I watched. Sometimes the film was scratched so badly it skipped, or it broke. I was in the basement forty hours a week. I watched so many moons.
It got so boring, I stopped looking for splices. Instead, I drew pictures on computer paper that I pulled from the recycling bin. Jan was never around, so I drew a lot. I drew rainbows, and people, and cities, and guns, and people getting shot and bleeding, and people having sex. When I got tired I just drew doodles. I tried to draw portraits of people I knew. My family always looked ridiculous, but funny because the pictures resembled them, but not enough. Then I drew all these things from my childhood, like Hello Kitty and Rainbow Brite and My Little Pony. I drew my brother’s G.I. Joes. I made the My Little Ponys kill the G.I. Joes.
I drew hundreds of pictures and they were all bad. I wasn’t good at drawing. It was also a little sad to draw so much because I could see everything that was inside me. I had drawn everything I could think of. All that was inside me was a bunch of toys, and TV shows, and my family. My life was boring. I only had one kiss, and it was with my gay cousin, Jamie.
One day, Jan came down to the basement. He saw all my little drawings. He didn’t say much. He picked them up and looked at them. He looked at every picture that was there. When he finished with each, he put it onto a neat pile.
He was tall and restrained, with clean, fading blond hair, combed back, with a slight wave in the front. He had a plain gold wedding band. As he looked at the pictures, I tried to
imagine what he did for fun, but I couldn’t. He put the last picture down on the neat stack and looked at me.
“How is Mr. Moon?” he asked. In his accent his words came out short and clean. There was a hint of warmth, but it was contained.
“I found a few scratches today,” I said.
“Good,” he said, and left. I didn’t draw any more that day. I looked at the moon.
The next day I was back in the basement. It was almost lunchtime, and Jan came in.
“Come here,” he said, and turned and walked out. I followed him down the hall and outside. We crossed the parking lot, me following him. The surface of the blacktop was melting where they had put tar to fill in the cracks. There were no trees in the parking lot and the sun was pushing hard. I followed the back of Jan’s light yellow shirt and tan slacks over to his truck. It was an old, faded mustard-colored pickup that said toyota in white on the back.
When I got to the truck, he was messing around with something in the stake bed. He put the back part that said toyota down. On top of this, he laid out a big, black portfolio.
He opened it and there were drawings inside.
“Look,” he said. He stepped back, and I looked. He said, “These are mine.”
They were good. They were mostly portraits. There were a bunch of portraits of a pretty woman’s face, all the same woman. He was a lot better than I was.
“That’s Greta, my wife,” he said. “She was not my wife then, when I made them. She became my wife.”
“She’s very beautiful,” I said. She was. Prettier than me.
“I did these when I was at school,” he said. “I wanted to be artist. But it was no good. It is no good to be artist. I practiced every day, eight hours a day. Then I could draw like Michelangelo. Then what? There is already Michelangelo. I realized there was nothing more to do. In science, there is always more to learn. Always more.”
I didn’t look at him; I looked at his pictures. I felt very lonely. I pictured him and his wife, alone at a long table, eating some bland Swedish food, not talking. The only sounds were
from the utensils hitting the plates, and the squish of their gentle chewing.
“So,” he said. “You see.” He reached over me and shut the portfolio to punctuate the “You see,” but I didn’t know what to see. Then I looked at him. He stood there and looked at
me. We were so awkward.
“Okay,” he said finally. “See you.”
“See you,” I said.
© 2010 WHOSE DOG R U Productions, Inc.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherScribner
- Publication dateOctober 19, 2010
- File size2894 KB
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Product details
- ASIN : B003V1WUKS
- Publisher : Scribner; Media Tie-In edition (October 19, 2010)
- Publication date : October 19, 2010
- Language : English
- File size : 2894 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 216 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,417,525 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #7,909 in Coming of Age Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #11,556 in Contemporary Literary Fiction
- #17,499 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
James Franco is an actor, director, screenwriter, and artist. His film appearances include "Milk," "Pineapple Express," the "Spider-Man" trilogy, and upcoming appearances in "Eat, Pray, Love," and "Howl," in which he portrays beat poet Allen Ginsberg. On television, he starred in the critically acclaimed series "Freaks and Geeks." Franco has also written, directed and starred in several short plays, two of which -- "Fool's Gold" and "The Ape" -- he adapted into feature-length films. He also wrote and directed the film "Good Time Max." Franco will be participating in an upcoming gallery show at Deitch Projects in New York, and his writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, McSweeney's, and other publications
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Top reviews from the United States
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The characters are mostly bored spoiled rich kids who do the sort of things teens have been doing since the drug and sexual revolutions of the 60s and 70s. While some of the stories deal with those subjects in a way that might shock conservative readers, there's a moral edge to them that makes them a bit more palatable.
If you were a fast lane teen you'll no doubt recognize these characters, whatever your generational era. Their only singular characteristic is that they grew up in Palo Alto, where the adults are liberal academics and parental figures are whatever the opposite of helicopter parents is. Undercurrents of racism pop up here and there, most often subliminal, but they do occasionally color the narrative which might trigger snowflake reactions.
As for Palo Alto, this is a book of short stories all centered around Palo Alto high school students in the early 90's. Growing up in a similar town, during a similar time, I personally identified with much of the detail and thoughts. The stories deal with self loathing, sexual frustration, the pain of unrequited teenage love, rape, and guilt. Typical teenage angst, which can be quite serious, especially when accompanied by external trauma and drug use. The stories are interesting, raw and honest. The characters are very believable and each deeply disturbed. Franco captures in literature some of that stomach turning sadness for teenagers that Larry Clark captured so well on films like Kids and Bully.
The writing is extremely well done. I notice some reviews claiming Franco is attempting to write in a Hemingway style, and not pulling it off. I would suggest that he's channeling more Carver, especially since the book contains short narratives centered around a select group. If Franco falls short on anything in style, it may be when you feel an attempt at Ginsburg that comes on a bit strong. This happens maybe twice.
This would've made a better screenplay, though. In a visual medium, it would've been slightly surreal, ala Sofia Coppola. But in the written word, something doesn't quite jive. Overall, though, it wasn't bad. A couple stories were pretty good.
Top reviews from other countries
Reviewed in Mexico on January 23, 2024