Bully: A True Story Of High School Revenge - Softcover

Schutze, Jim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0380723336 ISBN 13: 9780380723331

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks, 1998

Synopsis

Booby Kent was a bully--a steroid-pumped 20-year-old who dominated his peers in their comfortable, middle-class Ft. Lauderdale beach community through psychological, physical and sexual abuse. But on a summer night in 1993, Bobby was lured to the edge of the Florida everglades with a promise of sex and drugs. . .and was never seen alive again. The tormentor had become the victim in a bizarre and brutal act of vengeance carried out with ruthless efficiency and cold-blooded premeditation by seven of his high school acquaintances--including his lifelong best friend--and instigated by one overweight, underloved teenager who believed her life would be perfect. . .if only Bobby Kent were dead.

BULLY is a riveting story of adolescent rage and bloody revenge--all the more harrowing and horrific because its true.

About this title

Review:

Jim Schutze combines natural details about the sawgrass marshes and roaring alligators of the area south of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with keen observations about the fantasy lives of teenagers hooked on surfing, steroids, and instant gratification, to paint a harrowing picture of seven suburban kids who slide all too easily into moral depravity. At the heart of his tale is a kind of love triangle: the "bully," his best friend Marty, and Marty's girlfriend, who fiercely desires to rescue Marty from a strangely destructive friendship with strong homosexual undertones. Schutze's account of the aftermath of the murder includes interesting details on how the police skillfully lured confessions from the kids involved. I found the writing to have a few inconsistencies, and I wished the author had provided more background about how he reconstructed the dialogue, but those are small reservations about an excellent book overall.

From the Publisher:

Told with Jim Schutze's trademark precision and investigative savvy, Bully is a disturbing tale of modern-day teenage revenge. Bobby Kent and Marty Puccio grew up best buddies at opposite ends of a walled Fort Lauderdale community. Beneath the cheery suburban facade, the sinister lure of the Everglades was never far away. Marty was kind, but Bobby was a sadistic bully who dominated his high school friends psychologically, physically, and sexually. When they finally couldn't take it anymore, they set out to kill him. What the kids in Bobby's group did one night on the swampy edge of the Everglades, and how they and their families reacted when they were caught is a harrowing commentary on our society and the intensity of a rage rooted in love. But at the heart of this gripping story is an act of unspeakable revenge and the question of whether such vengeance is ever justified.

Bully is a story so unthinkable that it can't be true, but the emotions it evokes are so familiar that it can't be anything but real.

About this edition

• Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0380723336
• ISBN 13: 9780380723331
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 328