Going Postal

Bringing a fresh humor to the old news of burnt-out 1990s youth, first-novelist Jaramillo tells an alternately sentimental and scathing tale about the hardknock life of a Bay Area slacker. At 27, Berkeley grad Steve Reeves has not exactly taken the world by storm since getting his degree. He's known derisively as ""College boy"" to his tyrannical boss at the BagelWorks, his hostile, tubercular landlord and even his own father, a rage-filled San Diego postman. During a visit home, Steve's father, whom Steve believes has been losing it for years, presents his son with his first gun, a Colt .45. Steve flees back to San Francisco, desperate to forget the demented destiny he fears is coiled in his DNA. He's terrified of ""going postal"" and joining the ever-lengthening line of postal workers who become mass killers. Yet when his girlfriend dumps him and his hateful boss fires him, Steve's homicidal fantasies run rampant. With the help of his friends, a homophobic cowboy metalhead from rural Texas, an amphetamine-manufacturing ex-Hell's Angel who hasn't left his booby-trapped apartment since the '70s, and a tightly wound Scrabble wiz and dandy (who might be gay), Steve searches for sanity and love. While Steve's voice is predictably ironic and cynical, he maintains an appealingly romantic hopefulness. Jaramillo's witty narrative and motley cast of East Bay eccentrics bring real life to the slender tale of rebirth at the heart of this promising debut. (May)