From acclaimed Hollywood actor/director James Franco comes Palo Alto, a stunning work of fiction - the coming-of-age of a whole generation. Now a major motion picture.
As an actor James Franco won the Golden Globe award for his portrayal of James Dean in a tv biopic of the actor's life and has appeared in such diverse films as Pineapple Express and Milk. He plays the lead in Danny Boyle's new film 127 Hours and portrays Allen Ginsburg in Howl. He has collaborated with an artist called Carter in a conceptual film piece and has shown his work at the Dietch Projects in New York. Over the course of the last two years he has been awarded degrees in English Literature from UCLA, in Creative Writing from Columbia, in Filmmaking from NYU and has been accepted in the English Literature PhD program at Yale.
"[Franco] ends up perfectly mirroring the undulations of a teenage
mind."--"The New York Times Book Review"
"Startling and original."--"The Economist"
“Franco’s stories are impressive: crisp, spare, depressing…. A
collection of beautifully written stories.”—"Kirkus", starred
review
“James Franco is a writer of skill and sensitivity whose depiction
of cruelty and neglect, of amusement and loneliness, of longing and
being lost--of the pains and chaos of adolescence--is original and
impressive. He manages to depict the numbingly stupid and dangerous
behavior of teenagers and make it amazingly amusing then suddenly
deeply sad.”--Susan Minot, author of "Rapture"
“James Franco’s chilling stories seem too true for comfort. The
characters in "Palo Alto" navigate off a moral compass so smashed
they bruise everything they touch. Franco’s intense artistry swarms
all over this gripping book. Think Bret Easton Ellis, Dennis
Cooper, Kathy Acker. Or better yet, just think James Franco.”—Ben
Marcus, author of "Notable American Women"
“James Franco’s California teenagers are too old for camp, but not
too young for guns (a boy riding his bike to pick up a gun says, ‘I
rode fast and the air on my face was like riding through cold
ghosts’). The casual cruelty of children escalates as kids strike
out against everything that is more powerful than they are. It’s
the harsh humor that surprises in these stories—that and the
observations that show James Franco to be an original and simpatico
voice finely tuned to the territory. These quotable, unsettling
stories stay with you; they seem to change the ions in a
room.”--Amy Hempel
“Spare and riveting… Franco’s ear for juvenile vernacular is like
an Ouija board summoning the lost voices of Generation Z.”—"O", the
Oprah Magazine
“The stories are raw and funny-sad, and they capture with perfect
pitch the impossible exhilaration, the inevitable downbeat-ness,
and the pure confusion of being an adolescent.”—"Elle"
“These rough messages torn from the notebook of angry youth just
make us want to ask James Franco to say it ain’t so. These angular
stories read like dispatches from the edge of civilization: all the
young people hurting and denying it, denying connection, denying
their hope for anything but tonight, the next thing. James Franco
does not blink as he offers us these stories -- and it is hard for
us to look away.”—Ron Carlson, author of "The Signal"
"[Franco] makes the difficult appear simple, which only a good
writer can do.”—"Booklist"
"Franco's talent is unmistakable, his ambition profound. He has
taken the twin subjects of suburban Palo Alto and American
adolescence and made them as scary and true as they must be. This
is a book to be inhaled more than once, with delight and
admiration, with unease and pure enjoyment. As a writer, he's here
to stay."—Gary Shteyngart, author of "Absurdistan" and "Super Sad
True Love Story"
"James Franco's stories are raw, unsettling and delectable. Each
articulates a very American yearning within a dystopic suburban
landscape of shifting sexuality, class and race. They are both
really scary and fun to read.”--Darcey Steinke, author of "Easter
Everywhere"
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