Two, Two, Lily-White Boys

A Novel

Geoffrey Clark

• Editore: Red Hen Press
• Anno: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781597092579
• Argomento: Letteratura
• Categoria: Letteratura generale

"[A] classic story of male adolescence and homophobia... this short, richly packed novel may well be [Clark's] masterpiece." —DeWitt Henry, author of Falling Two, Two, Lily-White Boys follows the fortunes of two fourteen-year-old Scouts from Ermine Falls—Larry Carstairs, the narrator, and Andy Dellums, Larry's schoolmate and friend—over the course of six days at Camp Greavy, a Boy Scout camp not far from Traverse City, Michigan. The story's catalyst and Andy's tormentor is Russell "Curly" Norrys, a worldly, charismatic seventeen-year-old, a homophobe who suspects that Andy is a homosexual. Mercurial, protean, possibly sociopathic, Curly engineers conflicts that accelerate as the days wear on, eventually culminating in tragedy. Passive-aggressive Larry, moved to action at last, must choose between self-preservation and justice. "In this rite of passage story set at a Boy Scout summer camp, Clark's protagonist, Larry Carstairs, meets up with Curly Norrys, a curious blend of humor, intellectual acumen, nihilism, and sheer malevolence. Clark makes us feel, full strength, Larry's struggle with the nature of ambiguity. Clark's fiction here, as elsewhere, is a compelling mix of straight realism and black humor." —Jack Smith, author of If Winter Comes "Geoffrey Clark's Two, Two, Lily-White Boys soberly pierces the Scout Camp Greavey's character-building scrim of perseverance, steadfastness, and patriotism to reveal what disquiets the minds and hearts of those about to enter the straits of manhood... One emerges from this evocative work recalling that daunting passage in past time when we ceased to reason like a child and put childish ways behind us." —Dennis Must, author of Banjo Grease