as well as the classics The Wave and Give a Boy a Gun, which are taught in classrooms around the world.Strasser applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Summer of '69, and reported the following:
So, what to say about page 69 of the Summer of ’69? It’s July, 1, and Lucas’s girlfriend, Robin, has been away for only four days, but Lucas feels the need to write yet another letter to her (he’s already written several). He tries to keep the letters light and funny (she’s gone to Canada for the summer, but Lucas writes as if she’s stranded somewhere out on the frozen tundra above the Arctic Circle) but clearly he’s heartsick without her. Later, seeing his brother, Alan, in his usual spot on the den floor in front of the TV, Lucas reflects on their earlier years and the corporal punishment their father sometimes administered to discipline them. From there Lucas wanders into the kitchen where his mother has heated a couple of Swanson fried chicken TV dinners for him and Alan. While in the kitchen, his mom asks him why he never told her that he’d been rejected by Goddard, the only college he’d applied to. And now that he has been rejected, is he prepared to be drafted and sent to fight in the War in Vietnam? For Lucas, the future is looking bleak.Visit Todd Strasser's website.
My Book, The Movie: Summer of '69.
Writers Read: Todd Strasser.
--Marshal Zeringue
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