Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl

The year is 1971, and Sam Simon and elder brother Murray are enrolled in the first co-ed class at the elite Miss Little's School for Girls in Concord, Mass. Coming as he does from an all-male prep school, Sam hungrily surveys the sights and smells of his surroundings, soon falling under the spell of voluptuous Berry Mansfield and taking up with her clever, spirited crowd. When his longed-for love defects to the tougher, more athletic clique of a neighboring boys' school, Sam slips into depression and an obsession with F. Scott Fitzgerald that culminates in a tearful confrontation with unsympathetic friends in the school cafeteria. Never quitting his worship of Berry, Sam struggles toward maturity in scenes of high drama. First novelist Michaelis convincingly recreates the narrator's adolescent vantage point, as well as the 1970s era and its discontents. His dialogue is apt and funny, and his language, if cumbersome at times, is uncommonly rich. (Oct.)