Perv: A Love Story
Review
by: Russ
Ray 
Written
by: Jerry Stahl
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Not having
any experience in the area of drug abuse, I can only guess
what the overall metaphor of Perv: A Love Story is.
As much as it is a historical record of the very end of the
1960's and the weaving of teen angst, suburban boredom, and
social norms, it's also a blatant drug trip of its own. It
starts out with vivid, strange, and hilarious imagery. Then,
it prolongs itself by going absolutely nowhere while still
pursuing that imagery. Once things actually do start to move
along, the whole thing ends up leaving you craving for more
and wondering what the hell you've been doing for the past
12 hours.
Jerry
Stahl's book is told from the point of view of 16-year-old
Bobby Stark, who begins the book about to have sex with a
girl in the basement of her parents' house and two of his
friends watching. From there, it moves on to the surreal lifestyle
of her one-armed father and her mother suffering from a terrible
disease. Stark is kicked out of his prep school for the incident
after getting ratted out by one of his accomplices and is
sent back to his widowed mother in Pittsburgh. Bobby goes
in and out of strange circumstances, such as dealing with
his domineering mother and her strange condominium neighbors,
his mother's weird boyfriends, and an obsession with a childhood
crush who turns out to be a Hare Krishna when he returns to
town. After being so sick of dealing with his life, he decides
to seek out the love of his life and run off to California
to be a hippie.
As I said,
the book is full of imaginative and intriguing characters,
as well as tons of anecdotes that make you feel like the book
is more autobiographical than anything (which it is, in a
way). Bobby is such a sympathetic character early on that
seems to be caught in the wrong circumstances more often than
not than by making poor decisions. However, the book seems
to drag on at some points where Bobby seems too self-reflective
and staid about his situation, and you're screaming at him
to run away from home already. Then, when he actually gets
out on the road, Stahl spends way too much time on a violent,
grotesque incident that ultimately ends up being the climax
of the book. The epilogue that occurs over 20 years later
is rather silly and cute compared to the much more clever
writing earlier in the book, and it seems to tie up all the
loose ends in a hurry and much too neatly.
Perv
is refreshing in its frankness in discussing the teenage libido
and the reasons why kids do drugs... to get away from their
shitty, abusive, or oppressive parents. The supporting cast
is honestly much too brilliant and colorful to be believed,
but you will ultimately end up finishing this book disheartened
and wishing not for a happier ending or a sadder ending, but
just an ending.
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