Boys: Stories and a Novella

by David T. Lloyd

Book Overview

The narrator of the novella, Boys, is a thirteen-year-old Chris, a member of a small gang that includes his two friends, Frank and Joey. The novella poignantly charts Chris's involvement with a girl... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815608411
• ISBN13: 9780815608417
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: Syracuse University Press
• Length: 178 Pages
• Weight: 0.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.1" x 7.4"

Customer Reviews

A Summer Reading Must

David Lloyd's Boys is a clear and stunning book of twelve related stories and a novella, Boys Only, the tale of a gang of three, connected by, among other things, their being thirteen in the 60s.The stories, On Monday, take the reader off to school, up the hill, into class, at a desk, into gym and Woolworth's, down the hill again to home. The boys pay penalties for just being late, for being fat or thin or "slow," for their secrets. For being boys. They learn to plan ahead, to hurry up, to get revenge; they hear Coach Tyler's admonition to "never forget what's right and wrong."The novella, Boys Only, is about Chris and Joey and Frank, the gang of three, growing up in Upstate New York and what happens when they find a tree house to rebuild, a secret fort, what they find there and what is lost in little lies and misgivings.It's about relationships and families and, ultimately, what's found.Put Boys at the top of your summer reading list and save time to read it more than once for all the little secrets you will find.

Adolescence in all its innocent horrors and quiet wonders

BOYS compelled me to recall my own childhood-allegiances among peers shifting with the day, the desire for acceptance, and the even more desperate need for some sure sense of self. Part Christmas Story, part Wonder Years, and part Lean on Me, the book is divided into two distinct halves. The first section takes a single Monday and breaks it into the varying perspectives of students, their parents, teachers, and school administrators. The vignettes range from scenes of a mother's love and the plight of the class fat kid to Biblical allusion-a welcome extension of Lloyd's second book of poetry, The Gospel According to Frank, which has Sinatra walking through the cool of the morning in the Garden of Eden, and returning home as a different kind of prodigal son.The second half of BOYS is a novella, mesmerizing in its depiction of a boy named Chris and his two best friends as they navigate the social minefield that is high school. Despite its clearly being located in upstate New York in the sixties, the school could have been my own. The awkward conversations with girls giving way to cafeteria politics, the upper classman bully who is despised as much as he is admired-it all rings true in my own experience, and comes in language graceful in its simplicity. BOYS is a quick and satisfying read that stays fresh in my mind even weeks after finishing it, which is the best I can hope for from any book.