Gwendolyn works as a stripper. Gwen doesn't like this job, but it is helping her get though grad school. Gwen lives with her boyfriend Leo, who smokes pots and hangs out on street corners in different costumes. Along with all this, there is the downstairs neighbor Count Valiant, who seems to be dying.
Coming home from work one night, Gwen is caught in the rioting caused by the Rodney King beating. All Gwen wants to do is get home and get out of town. The big shocker is that Gwen finds out that she is gong to have a baby, and doesn't feel that Leo will fit the role of a father.
FURTHER OUT THAN YOU THOUGHT was a little too hard for me to follow. One minute the characters are on a rooftop smoking pot. The next minute they are in a car trying to get out of town.
I found that I lost interest in this book after about fifty pages. I did finish it, but it took me a long time. Would read a chapter and than put it down for a few days.
I feel some people would get into this story line, I did not. The characters to me were a little on the weird side. Sometimes this adds to the book. In this case, it didn't do anything for me. The storyline kind of jumped around just a little too much for me. I didn't have a problem with the drugs. It was just a little too unbelievable for me. I didn't really care how it ended, I just wanted it to end. I
From award-winning poet Michaela Carter comes a taut and
erotically charged literary debut, set against the chaos
of
the 1992 L.A. riots, about three twentysomethings
searching
for meaning in their lives
In the Neverland that is Los Angeles, where make-believe
seems possible, three dreamers find themselves on the
verge
of transformation. Twenty-five-year-old poet Gwendolyn
Griffin works as a stripper to put herself through
graduate
school. Her perpetually stoned boyfriend, Leo, dresses in
period costume to hawk his music downtown and seems to be
losing his already tenuous grip on reality. And their
flamboyant best friend and neighbor, nightclub crooner
Count
Valiant, is slowly withering away.
When the city explodes in violence after the Rodney King
verdict, the chaos becomes a catalyst for change. Valiant
is
invigorated; Leo plans a new stuntβwalking into East L.A.
naked, holding a white flag; and Gwen, discovering she is
pregnant, is pulled between the girl she's been and the
woman she could become. But before Gwen can embrace
motherhood, she's forced to face the questions she's been
avoiding: Can Leo be a father? Can she leave the club life
behind, or will the city's spell prove too seductive?
Weaving poetry and sensuality with an edgy urban
sensibility, Further Out Than You Thought is a celebration
of life, an ode to motherhood, and a haunting story of
love,
friendship, and one woman's quest for redemption.
No excerpt available.
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