The Most Dangerous Place on Earth
A Novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
In an edenic community of wealthy families, Molly Nicholl, a teacher from a poor city arrives in the middle of the school year and becomes intrigued by the hidden lives of her privileged students. Unknown to her, a tragedy from middle school continues to...
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In an edenic community of wealthy families, Molly Nicholl, a teacher from a poor city arrives in the middle of the school year and becomes intrigued by the hidden lives of her privileged students. Unknown to her, a tragedy from middle school continues to reverberate. These teens are navigating a world in which every action may become public, a world that Molly finds both alluring and dangerous.
Klappentext zu „The Most Dangerous Place on Earth “
An unforgettable cast of characters is unleashed into a realm known for its cruelty-the American high school-in this captivating debut novel.The wealthy enclaves north of San Francisco are not the paradise they appear to be, and nobody knows this better than the students of a local high school. Despite being raised with all the opportunities money can buy, these vulnerable kids are navigating a treacherous adolescence in which every action, every rumor, every feeling, is potentially postable, shareable, viral.
Lindsey Lee Johnson's kaleidoscopic narrative exposes at every turn the real human beings beneath the high school stereotypes. Abigail Cress is ticking off the boxes toward the Ivy League when she makes the first impulsive decision of her life: entering into an inappropriate relationship with a teacher. Dave Chu, who knows himself at heart to be a typical B student, takes desperate measures to live up to his parents' crushing expectations. Emma Fleed, a gifted dancer, balances rigorous rehearsals with wild weekends. Damon Flintov returns from a stint at rehab looking to prove that he's not an irredeemable screwup. And Calista Broderick, once part of the popular crowd, chooses, for reasons of her own, to become a hippie outcast.
Into this complicated web, an idealistic young English teacher arrives from a poorer, scruffier part of California. Molly Nicoll strives to connect with her students-without understanding the middle school tragedy that played out online and has continued to reverberate in different ways for all of them.
Written with the rare talent capable of turning teenage drama into urgent, adult fiction, The Most Dangerous Place on Earth makes vivid a modern adolescence lived in the gleam of the virtual, but rich with sorrow, passion, and humanity.
Praise for The Most Dangerous Place on Earth
"Alarming, compelling . . . Here's high school life in all its madness."-The New York Times
"Unputdownable."-Elle
"Impossibly funny
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and achingly sad . . . [Lindsey Lee] Johnson cracks open adolescent angst with adult sensibility and sensitivity."-San Francisco Chronicle
"[A] piercing debut . . . Johnson proves herself a master of the coming-of-age story."-The Boston Globe
"Entrancing . . . Johnson's novel possesses a propulsive quality. . . . Hard to put down."-Chicago Tribune
"Readers may find themselves so swept up in this enthralling novel that they finish it in a single sitting."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"[A] piercing debut . . . Johnson proves herself a master of the coming-of-age story."-The Boston Globe
"Entrancing . . . Johnson's novel possesses a propulsive quality. . . . Hard to put down."-Chicago Tribune
"Readers may find themselves so swept up in this enthralling novel that they finish it in a single sitting."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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Lese-Probe zu „The Most Dangerous Place on Earth “
This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proofCopyright © 2016 Lindsey Lee Johnson
THE NOTE
Cally Broderick lingered in the doorway of the resource office, waiting to be noticed.
She would have been easy to overlook. She was short and skinny, and her dirty-blond hair had begun that year to wave and shine with oil. Her hazel eyes were pretty, though too wide-set, her nose thin but too long. Every four weeks her face produced a constellation of pimples that loomed and gleamed when she turned her cheek to the mirror, disgusting and enthralling her. Her face was a question she considered daily, widening her eyes in the mirror on the inside of her locker, sucking the flesh of her cheeks between her teeth. Her mother said-or used to say-that Cally was "striking looking," a description Cally rejected: it was not only vaguely violent sounding but also patently untrue.
She was a restless girl, anxious to rewind her life or jump it forward. In service of the latter goal, she'd made a list of skills to learn before adulthood-how to swallow pills without gagging, to buy tampons without blushing, to shake the hands of her father's friends without giggling and glancing away. But as the years passed, the list only grew longer: life presented more questions as she lived it, more and more doors to unlock. These questions she didn't share with anyone. She wrote them in a battered journal, then stuffed the journal in a pillowcase and shoved it under her mattress lest someone-her brother
Jake-find it and expose her. She would not even show it to Abigail Cress, her best friend. Prior to Abigail, Cally would have said her best friend was her mother, but that was now impossible, for a multitude of reasons too complex to explain. In fact there was little about her life that Cally Broderick could explain, to herself or to anyone else. She was a girl in middle school. She was thirteen years old.
The resource office at Mill Valley Middle School was small and
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dim-the resource teacher, Ms. Flax, had a moral objection to fluorescent lights, preferring to squint in the amber glow of a ceramic lamp- and stank of mold, and of the pesto pasta that steamed at the teacher's elbow as she marked papers at her desk.
Ms. Flax, over thirty but under fifty, had an apple-shaped body that she wrapped in hippie scarves and tunics and long mud-colored skirts. She was not pretty, Cally decided, but prettyish, with featherweight hair and deep brown eyes that turned down at the corners, making her look on the verge of tears even when she laughed. Across from her sat Tristan Bloch, who flipped through a stack of shiny colored papers on the desk. He was fat and pale with blond hair buzz-cut so close she saw bits of scalp through the glistening bristle; on sunny days at recess his head would glow as if on fire.
Everyone at Mill Valley Middle School knew that Tristan spent hours in Ms. Flax's office, during homeroom, study hall, sometimes recess and lunch. No one knew what they did in there for all that time. Probably she helped him with his work, but it seemed just as likely that he helped her with hers.
"Ms. Flax?" Cally said. "I got this note? You wanted to, like, see me?" Ms. Flax started and looked up. "Oh, yes," she said, shifting her weight, and the chair cushion squeaked and farted beneath her. This embarrassed Cally. And it happened every time-pushing hair out of her face, Ms. Flax would pretend not to notice the noises as she begged Cally to change her ways, as if Cally's "applying herself " would determine the course of Ms. Flax's own sad life. "Come in, please. Have a seat."
"No thanks," Cally said. She knew what Ms. Flax was like: to step inside, to sit, was to condemn oneself to an inquisition.
"Cally, please."
Seeing no way out, Cally relented, stepping into the room and taking the seat next to Tristan Bloch's.
"Mr. Hoyt says you've been copying algebra homework," Ms. Flax said. "You are an extremely bright girl,
Ms. Flax, over thirty but under fifty, had an apple-shaped body that she wrapped in hippie scarves and tunics and long mud-colored skirts. She was not pretty, Cally decided, but prettyish, with featherweight hair and deep brown eyes that turned down at the corners, making her look on the verge of tears even when she laughed. Across from her sat Tristan Bloch, who flipped through a stack of shiny colored papers on the desk. He was fat and pale with blond hair buzz-cut so close she saw bits of scalp through the glistening bristle; on sunny days at recess his head would glow as if on fire.
Everyone at Mill Valley Middle School knew that Tristan spent hours in Ms. Flax's office, during homeroom, study hall, sometimes recess and lunch. No one knew what they did in there for all that time. Probably she helped him with his work, but it seemed just as likely that he helped her with hers.
"Ms. Flax?" Cally said. "I got this note? You wanted to, like, see me?" Ms. Flax started and looked up. "Oh, yes," she said, shifting her weight, and the chair cushion squeaked and farted beneath her. This embarrassed Cally. And it happened every time-pushing hair out of her face, Ms. Flax would pretend not to notice the noises as she begged Cally to change her ways, as if Cally's "applying herself " would determine the course of Ms. Flax's own sad life. "Come in, please. Have a seat."
"No thanks," Cally said. She knew what Ms. Flax was like: to step inside, to sit, was to condemn oneself to an inquisition.
"Cally, please."
Seeing no way out, Cally relented, stepping into the room and taking the seat next to Tristan Bloch's.
"Mr. Hoyt says you've been copying algebra homework," Ms. Flax said. "You are an extremely bright girl,
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Autoren-Porträt von Lindsey Lee Johnson
Lindsey Lee Johnson holds a master of professional writing degree from the University of Southern California and a BA in English from the University of California at Davis. She has served as a tutor and mentor at a private learning center, where her focus has been teaching writing to teenagers. Born and raised in Marin County, she now lives with her husband in Los Angeles.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Lindsey Lee Johnson
- 2017, 288 Seiten, Masse: 15,4 x 23,6 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: Penguin Random House
- ISBN-10: 0399589570
- ISBN-13: 9780399589577
- Erscheinungsdatum: 06.01.2017
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
"The characters in The Most Dangerous Place on Earth, Lindsey Lee Johnson's alarming, compelling and coolly funny debut novel about the goings-on in and out of a high school in Marin County, Calif., spend most of their time spectacularly failing to see beneath one another's surfaces. . . . Ms. Johnson's characters are unpredictable, contradictory and many things at once, which make them particularly satisfying. . . . Here's high school life in all its madness."-Sarah Lyall, The New York Times"Told through multiple perspectives, the novel offers a rich portrait of these characters' experiences, laying bare their desires without demeaning the validity of their concerns. . . . [Lindsay Lee] Johnson proves herself a master of the coming-of-age story. . . . With a fearless compassion, Johnson artfully unwraps who these people truly are, as well as whom they claim to be."-The Boston Globe
"In her stunning debut, Johnson . . . explores the fallout among a group of teens-an alpha girl turned stoner, a striving B student, an Ivy League wannabe-who prove, in the end, less entitled than simply empty and searching. An eye-opener."-People (Book of the Week)
"Hard to put down. Johnson's novel possesses a propulsive quality. . . . I read this book in one, long sitting. . . . It is a particularly poignant message for today as we, as a nation, grapple with rising inequality and widespread questioning of the viability of the American dream. We ask, is it dead? But Johnson is asking a different question, a good one. She asks whether there is something fundamentally askew with this bedrock American idea. Her book seems to say, yes, there is something rotten amid the uneven splendor. Just look at the kids who should be the happiest on earth."-Chicago Tribune
"If you are cruising for a quality read that's also an unputdownable quickie, reach for Lindsey Lee Johnson's debut novel, The Most Dangerous Place on Earth. It's a high-wire high school drama."-Elle
"Gripping . . .
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Each chapter offers a vignette into a more complicated interior life-ones that involve inappropriate student-teacher relationships, cheating on SATs, drugs, sex, and house parties. . . . Lindsey Lee Johnson works a convincing assortment of different voices into her debut."-GQ
"Johnson manages to intensify the perils of adolescence in the same vein as Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep and Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You."-San Francisco Magazine
"These characters seem like typical teenagers, but beneath the surface is a dark incident that makes this chilling portrait of growing up in the digital age pretty unputdownable."-PureWow
"A fascinating, often comic, and ultimately heartbreaking read . . . Like Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep, Lindsey Lee Johnson's The Most Dangerous Place on Earth ekes engaging drama out of an upper-crust high school's social politics. . . . In its most insightful moments, The Most Dangerous Place on Earth also reminds us just how moving a teen drama can be."-The Dallas Morning News
"A young high school teacher stumbles on buried secrets in this engrossing, multilayered drama."-Cosmopolitan
"If you are cruising for a quality read that's also an unputdownable quickie, reach for Lindsey Lee Johnson's debut novel, The Most Dangerous Place on Earth. It's a high-wire high school drama."-Elle
"The characters in Lindsey Lee Johnson's debut novel affected me in a way I can't remember feeling since I binge-watched all five seasons of Friday Night Lights. . . . You'll walk away feeling like you could revisit a hallway drama armed with bulletproof perspective."-Glamour
"Engrossing . . . affluent students become embroiled in high-stakes drama with their teachers and, of course, each other."-InStyle
"In Johnson's excellent debut, her sharp storytelling conveys an authentic sense of the perils of adolescence. . . . Johnson allows these dramas to unfold through various shifting perspectives. . . . She keeps the action brisk and deepens read
"Johnson manages to intensify the perils of adolescence in the same vein as Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep and Celeste Ng's Everything I Never Told You."-San Francisco Magazine
"These characters seem like typical teenagers, but beneath the surface is a dark incident that makes this chilling portrait of growing up in the digital age pretty unputdownable."-PureWow
"A fascinating, often comic, and ultimately heartbreaking read . . . Like Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep, Lindsey Lee Johnson's The Most Dangerous Place on Earth ekes engaging drama out of an upper-crust high school's social politics. . . . In its most insightful moments, The Most Dangerous Place on Earth also reminds us just how moving a teen drama can be."-The Dallas Morning News
"A young high school teacher stumbles on buried secrets in this engrossing, multilayered drama."-Cosmopolitan
"If you are cruising for a quality read that's also an unputdownable quickie, reach for Lindsey Lee Johnson's debut novel, The Most Dangerous Place on Earth. It's a high-wire high school drama."-Elle
"The characters in Lindsey Lee Johnson's debut novel affected me in a way I can't remember feeling since I binge-watched all five seasons of Friday Night Lights. . . . You'll walk away feeling like you could revisit a hallway drama armed with bulletproof perspective."-Glamour
"Engrossing . . . affluent students become embroiled in high-stakes drama with their teachers and, of course, each other."-InStyle
"In Johnson's excellent debut, her sharp storytelling conveys an authentic sense of the perils of adolescence. . . . Johnson allows these dramas to unfold through various shifting perspectives. . . . She keeps the action brisk and deepens read
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