The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
A Novel
Title Details
Pages: 200
Trim size: 5.500in x 8.500in
Formats
Paperback
Pub Date: 09/28/2001
ISBN: 9-780-8203-2338-1
List Price: $26.95
Web PDF
Pub Date: 09/15/2010
ISBN: 9-780-8203-3585-8
List Price: $26.95
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
A Novel
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- Description
- Reviews
- Awards
Fuhrman handles his material with wit and grace. There are no false remembrances, there is no condescension; the boys appear here in all their gum-chewing, insult-spitting, girl fantasizing naivete and candor.
—Washington Times
Fuhrman takes wicked pleasure in scraping teen innocence against the graveled, perverse underbelly of suburban childhood.
—Newsday
Heartbreaking yet hilarious . . . By marrying the earnest to the ridiculous, Fuhrman captures the sublime intensity of adolescence.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
One of the most strikingly original novels of recent memory.
—Creative Loafing
The author's real triumph lies in his ability to plumb wild young minds, to reveal the ardent romantic hearts that beat within wisecracking boys. Their wild, unselfconscious beauty permeates the book. . . . We may never know what a loss [Chris Fuhrman's death] was. Who knows how many other brilliant, beautiful, heartbreaking books he may have written?
—Boston Book Review
This book deserves many, many readers. . . . A memorable, funny, and poignant depiction of a glorious boyhood chased down and brutally terminated . . . A story as odd, vivid, painful, splendid, and sad as adolescence itself . . . Fuhrman's posthumous debut invites wistful speculation about the sort of career which might have followed it.
—Commonweal
The moral of the story . . . has so much gravity and grace. . . . This is the real thing, writing done with everything on the line . . . The death of Chris Fuhrman is an incalculable loss to this generation of writers. We should be glad to have his testimony.
—Boston Globe
The freshness of Fuhrman's novel comes from his ability to squeeze out of a time of transition universal evocations of rebellion against growing up. . . . Fuhrman provides his story and characters with enough originality to keep the narrative clipping along and his reader totally absorbed.
—Chicago Tribune
Runner-up
Book Sense Book of the Year Awards, Book Sense and American Booksellers Association