Jump

Prendergast's vigorous debut novel puts a fresh spin on a familiar situation: a bunch of friends go away together for the weekend a few years after college graduation. In 1984, narrator Walter and his girlfriend, Nancy, are nervously waiting to find out if she is pregnant; meanwhile they set out for Vermont with Dave, a former housemate and Nancy's longtime best friend. Joining them are Patrick, a gay college friend; Dave's cousin Robin, on leave from college after a disastrous relationship with a drug dealer; and another couple, one of whom works with Dave. In flashbacks, Walter recalls how he met Dave and Nancy, and how one semester of communal living in an old house fulfilled his fantasies of college (group dinners, plenty of drugs). He also paints Dave's and Nancy's odd relationship: Nancy seems to maintain a massive crush on the promiscuous Dave--even after she's started living with Walter. Walter also describes his problematic relationship with his mother, who, when he was small, would fake kidnapping him so his police-officer father would chase after them. If Jump has a lot more bite than the usual Big Chill college-reunion memoir, it is because, unlike the characters of many of its more maudlin kind, Walter shows not a trace of self-pity. (Aug.)