Coming of Age in the Columbine Era

Coming of Age in the Columbine Era:
Hazards of Suburban Living II

Tuesday, February 7, 1 – 3 p.m.
Price: $40 ($35 for members)

Book:
Project X, Jim Shepard

In this two-hour class, we will discuss the novel Project X, Jim Shepard’s disturbing yet darkly humorous story in which a misfit adolescent and his outcast friend, persecuted by other teens and misunderstood by adults, hatch a potentially devastating plot. Esquire called this novel “…an inspired evocation of the caprices of adolescence…” and the Los Angeles Times said, “Of all Shepard’s work, perhaps none blends fact and fiction more controversially…He…is reconfiguring how fiction works.”

We will examine the effectiveness of the young narrator’s point-of-view in winning the reader over, even as his behavior becomes increasingly unsympathetic. We’ll talk about how events that seem ripped from the headlines, such as those depicted in this book, may be successfully rendered as fiction while avoiding overt moral lessons. In particular, we will discuss the use of humor in telling a story that at its essence is anything but funny.

 ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR:

Paula Whyman’s stories have appeared in journals and anthologies, including Writes of Passage: Coming of Age Stories and Memoirs from The Hudson Review (Ivan R. Dee, 2008), Gargoyle magazine, Delmarva Review, and Bethesda Magazine.  She earned her MFA in literature from The American University, where she received the Myra Sklarew Thesis Award.  She’s the recipient of an MSAC grant and short story honors including the Virgin Fiction award.  She teaches for the Pen/Faulkner Foundation’s writers in schools program in DC and The Hudson Review’s similar program in NY, and she is a MacDowell Colony fellow.