Hopeland (Alias Skippy Dies Part I)

 So...I joined this reading challenge which prompted us to read twelve books suggested by our friends. I promptly took to Facebook and asked my friends in FB-land to suggest some good reads. And the first person to respond was Katie Levin--who has suggested some good things in the past (The Elegance of the Hedgehog for one...). Her first suggestion was Bunk by Kevin Young. Now, I know Kevin Young as a poet, so I had that on the brain. Imagine my surprise when a nearly 600 page doorstop showed up in a my library holds. Turned out to be a well-researched look at America's fascination with hoaxes, hucksters, forgeries, and...fake news. But I just wasn't ready for a deep-dive into that kind of scholarly work and just couldn't manage 600 pages. Luckily, Katie had provided me with another choice: Skippy Dies (2010) by Paul Murray. 

But the library provided another surprise because when I searched for Skippy Dies, it brought up something called Hopeland by Murray. I thought, what the heck--maybe the publisher decided to rename the thing. I opened to the title page and, lo and behold, it said Skippy Dies. And right there in the first chapter, by golly, Skippy dies in the middle of a doughnut-eating contest with his friend Ruprecht. Then we go back in time and we see the lead up to the big event. We see Skippy the swimming champion for his Seabrook College prep school.We see Ruprecht trying to make contact with aliens. We see Carl and Barry constantly trying to get their hands on prescription meds to either get high themselves or to sell to others (or give the girls at the nearby St. Brigid's school). All the boys getting ready for a Halloween Hop with visions of making it with the girls dancing in their heads. Skippy leaving the dance with the beautiful (but drug-crazed) Lori. But we're not just interested in Skippy and company...we get to see old boy turned history teacher Howard the Coward (as the boys call him) wondering if life with girlfriend Halley is all it's cracked up to be and panting after the lovely Aurelie McIntyre, the substitute teacher for geography. We get to see the sadistic Father Green who loves to berate the boys for all sorts of sins and the "Automator," the fill-in headmaster who longs to have the job full-time so he can modernize the school. And we're waiting to see why Skippy dies and what happens next....but the book suddenly ends. I was so confused...

That's when I realized that the library had gotten its hands on the boxed set (pictured above) which breaks Skippy Dies into three separate books. If I want to find out the rest of the story, I apparently need to read two more books. I'm afraid that's not gonna happen. I gave it the ol' college try, but male teenage angst, especially when some of it is still being had by thirty-something history teacher named Howard the Coward just doesn't seem to be my thing. It doesn't help that it's written in the present tense and it skips around among the characters. I really wanted to like this. I didn't want to let Katie down. But Skippy, I'm sorry, I just can't wade through two more books with all these characters to find out why you died. ★ and 1/2, and I'm not sure that isn't too generous.

First line: Skippy and Ruprecht are having a doughnut-eating race one evening when Skippy turns purple and falls off his chair.

Last line: Good night, you say, not moving, smiling at the stars everywhere...stars in her hair...stars in her eyes...stars...stars