Hinterland

Waterbridge deftly combines humor, nostalgia and drama in this vivid, bittersweet novel about a high school senior's coming-of-age in 1957 in working class Thorndam, Mass., a claustrophobic little backwater. Michael Mack's family life is depressing: his crude father drinks, his mother is promiscuous and his unmarried Aunt Veri wallows in loneliness. To cut the tension, good-natured Michael makes grotesque monster faces (he calls this ``gorning''), and hangs out with his mischievous confidantes, Junior and Leakey. But more consequential events are transforming Michael, as well as Thorndam. He has his first sexual experience, mourns Veri's untimely death, and enthusiastically contemplates his departure for college while the bumbling townsfolk, incited by a film about a Martian invasion, stalk a menacing local ``alien.'' By summer's end, Michael finally learns to tolerate his repugnant father and uninviting hometown, and is well on his way to confident maturity. Part of Council Oak's First Fiction series, this is a rewarding, smoothly written novel that will invoke pangs of recognition in its readers. (Nov.)