First published 2015
Jude Keffy-Horn spends his teenage years getting stoned with his best friend Teddy in their sleepy Vermont town. When Teddy dies from an overdose on New Year's Eve 1987, Jude's world collapses. His relationship with his hippie adoptive parents crumbles, and they send him to live with his pot-dealing biological father in New York's East Village. There Jude discovers straight edge, a hardcore punk movement that rejects drugs, alcohol, meat, and casual sex. Alongside Teddy's half-brother Johnny and their friend Eliza, Jude throws himself into this militantly clean lifestyle as a way to honor his dead friend's memory. But his obsession with straight edge creates new problems and dangerous extremes. As these young people struggle to define themselves, their parents grapple with a generation that has turned the sex-drugs-rock rebellion on its head. The story moves between rural Vermont and gritty New York City, following fractured families trying to heal from tragedy while anticipating new life and unexpected hope.
Genres: american-fiction, addiction, 20th-century, coming-of-age, contemporary, adolescence, 21st-century, adoption
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, grief, redemption
Setting: East Village, New York, Vermont
Period: 1987
416 pages · Paperback · Ecco
Content warnings: addiction, drug-use