The Sterile Cuckoo - Softcover

Nichols, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393348490 ISBN 13: 9780393348491

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2013

Synopsis

“A hilarious, sad . . . all too true novel about the rough underside of a college love affair.”―John Knowles, author of A Separate Peace

When eighteen-year-old Jerry Payne first meets Pookie Adams at the Friarsburg, Oklahoma, bus depot, he is hardly aware that this moment marks the beginning of the most memorable love affair of his life. Overwhelmed (and yet secretly enchanted) by her zany, rambling monologue, Jerry is relieved to leave her in St. Louis as he continues to New York. Thinking he’s seen the last of her, he heads off to college, only to be pursued by seventeen lengthy letters, and before he knows it he’s involved with a seemingly crazy, startlingly honest girl who adores him. During the next two years, Pookie helps Jerry leave behind the fun-seeking, beer-blasted fraternity man he has become, as she teaches him to open his heart to her. Then, almost as suddenly as she appeared in his life, she disappears from it, leaving in her wake an eternal trail of love and wonder.

About this title

About the Author:

John Nichols is the author of On Top of Spoon Mountain, The Wizard of Loneliness, A Ghost in the Music, If Mountains Die, The Milagro Beanfield War, and other works. He lives in Taos, New Mexico.

Review:

“[Nichols’s] art is impressive.”
- New York Times

“Dazzling. . . . [The] funny, imaginative, and pathetic story of the beginning and end of a rapturous love affair between two crazy college kids.”
- Publishers Weekly

“Comic and touching and true.”
- Reynolds Price

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0393348490
• ISBN 13: 9780393348491
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224