The Miseducation of Cameron Post
In her useful (and wholly quotable) book on craft, Mystery & Manners, Flannery O'Connor wrote: "A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other way, and it takes every word of the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anyone asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell him to read the story."
Keeping O'Connor's words in mind, here are some notes on the novel's "aboutness":
Dead parents. Random acts of shoplifting. Girls kissing girls in barns, in twisty slides on playgrounds, in abandoned hospitals. A Victorian dollhouse with all kinds of weird shit glued to it. The compulsive renting and watching of 99 cent videos. Miles City, Montana. The 1990s. Swimming. Summer. Cowgirls. Dinosaur discovering. Ferris Wheels. Conversion therapy. Taco Johns. The way a mountain-toppling earthquake that happened some thirty years before keeps aftershocking our hero: Cameron Post. Yup: it's coming of age, it's coming of GAYge, it's a Bildungsroman, a novel of development, it's all of these things, none of these things, and perhaps this listing is growing tedious.
The Miseducation Of Cameron Post is published by Balzer + Bray, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Praise for The Miseducation of Cameron Post
Accolades
Named to the following best books lists:
Starred reviews
★ The Miseducation of Cameron Post
★ The Miseducation of Cameron Post
★ The Miseducation of Cameron Post
★ The Miseducation of Cameron Post