Product Description

From an edgy new voice comes a frenetic novel about boredom, porn, and pills. Brandishing a unique, comic worldview, Alasdair Duncan assembles a surprising, devastating narrative using dialogue, emails, Internet chats, fantasies, notebook entries, blips from video games, and more.

Calvin is sixteen and bored with suburban life. But in the city, things are altogether more exciting. It's there that Calvin meets Anthony -- and the two boys quickly become obsessed with each other. Then Calvin discovers pictures of Anthony on a pornographic website and is drawn into his new friend's seedy underworld. Just as he's discovering what's like when first love meets first sex, when friendship meets lust, and when love meets loss, his teen angst morphs into full-on self-destructivness...and puts him on the path to an absolutely shocking series of events.

With total command of the world he creates for his characters -- in which the computer is just another pill you can pop, another way to run and hide, like drinking or drugging or having sex -- Alsdair Duncan makes an auspicious debut.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1369137 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-19
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

Yet another afternoon at school and it's a case of hormones and anxiety running wild, and it's all very teenage and suburban and kind of, you know. Blah. I'm sure you've heard it all before. Chemistry was in third period, and I tried to find the urge to learn (C²H²0² -- 2CH²CH³0+2C02) but I spaced out completely for most of the second half. Afternoons like this I really don't know what to do with myself. I don't even feel like the stuff happening around me is real. After class I walked around for a while in kind of a daze and eventually met up with my friend and faghag Margot. She had these clips in her hair, pink ones, like a little girl would wear. I think she was making a fashion statement. I hope she was anyway. For some reason -- she never explained why exactly -- she was carrying this plush raccoon around with her. It was an expensive-looking one with a black smudge over its eyes the way I guess all raccoons have, and this little red tongue that sort of poked out.

"This is Haruki the Raccoon!" she told me. "My dad got it for me when he was in Tokyo." She lifted the tag and started reading it. "Haruki the Raccoon! are joining you on many adventures! Oh, and check this out. Haruki the Raccoon! have many small parts that may causing children under three years to choke!"

"When did your dad go to Tokyo?"

"He was there last week. Some business thing. I don't know." She waved Haruki the Raccoon! at me and made this grrrr noise.

"Isn't it fucking cool?"

"It's great," I told her.

She menaced me with the stuffed toy for a while, still laughing. She was making it talk, moving it as she spoke to make it look as though Haruki the Raccoon! was really the one talking to me. It was the kind of thing that I'd normally have found funny, but on this particular afternoon it was way more than I could deal with.

Haruki the Raccoon!: Hello Calvin!

Me: Margot, can you stop that?

Haruki the Raccoon!: But Calvin, I'm your pal! I am joining you on many adventures!

Me: Margot...Fucking...You're freaking me out with that raccoon thing.

Haruki the Raccoon!: You're making me sad, Calvin...And when I get sad, I am causing you to choke!

Margot attacked me with the raccoon. Sort of swiped at my head and chest with it, making this strangled growling noise. That was kind of funny.

Haruki the Raccoon!: Are you going to Edward's tonight?

Me: I don't know. What are the alternatives?

Haruki the Raccoon!: Not much. If you are going, would you like to come around to my place beforehand and get stooo-ooned?

Me: I probably wouldn't object to that.

Margot laughed. Or rather, Haruki the Raccoon! laughed. Both of them did.

"Cool cool," she said. "Get it together and come over to my house later this afternoon. Think you can get a lift?"

"With Mum? Not likely. I'll probably have to bus it."

"She's...?"

"Don't even ask."

Copyright © 2003 by Alasdair Duncan

Customer Reviews

What a Letdown!
The beginning of this book showed a lot of promise. Calvin reminded me of people I used to know, and I even uttered some of his teen angst quips when I was his age. However, as the book went on, nothing really happened. Duncan is a talented writer and I really enjoyed the format of the book, but he kept dropping hints of things that happened (such as his younger brother's death), but he never really explained or followed up with them. I also agree with the other reviewer in that the message was "do drugs and have a lot of sex before you get old because then no one will want you anymore." That's unfortunately the thought of many young gay men already and it doesn't need to be perpetuated.
All in all, I would hesitate to recommend buying this book, but it's not too bad of a read if it's laying around or you find it at the library.

Sushi Central felt very real to me
I read the Australian edition of this book - Sushi Central - when it came out, and I've come back to it quite a few times since then. It is written in a style that is dark and funny and also very accessible - at times it feels less like you're reading a book and more like the author is really there talking to you. The main character is a very believable teenager - at certain times you want to hit him for being so stupid, but at others you just want to give him a hug!

This book is not quite perfect - it's flawed in some ways, and there are places where you can feel the influence of other writers - but you can understand these things because I think the author was fairly young when he wrote it. I am really looking forward to Duncan's next book or anything else that he writes!

Dance from a Different Drummer
This story is based in Brisbane, Australia and if the goings-on bear any resemblance to real life there, it has to be the gayest place on earth. All the boys are constantly checking each other out. Boys on the street. Boys on the bus. Boys ostensibly with their girlfriends. Sixteen-year-olds have more sex than a fulltime porn star. But these are not complaints! The author, all of twenty-two, has an original style that blends flashbacks, fast-forwards, e-mail transmissions and it all works. My copy was printed in the U.S. so I don't know if it was "Americanized" but there are still some colloquialisms from down under. I figured out quickly what a "uni" is; it took a bit longer for a "long black" -- no, not what you think! There is a great amount of decadence and depravity ... and that's from the likeable characters! Alasdair Duncan is described as an "edgy new voice." Based on this work, indeed he is.