Popping Cherries

Ted Rasmussen is one pervy teenager. At fourteen, he has many things: a bowl cut, braces, acne, and every Spice Girls music video on one VHS tape. What he doesn't have is Laila: angel of the flesh, nymph of the high school halls, the all-consuming core of his pubescent lust. At first his life is simple enough. He plays Super Nintendo, smokes pot, masturbates into his couch, and tries to be good to his kid sister.When his parents put him on a mysterious medication to help him focus in school, Ted's brain flirts with hallucination. In the storm of his delusion, he finds comfort in watching Laila from his hiding spot outside her bedroom window. It's not until his troubles manifest as small mutative creatures that his grasp on reality is truly challenged. A farcical tale of adolescent fantasy, hallucinatory horror, and tongue-in-cheek satire, POPPING CHERRIES is an eye-opening doctrine for any teen who feels its them against the world, and a gateway back into the juvenile mind for those who have forgotten the struggle. Blending kitschy Solondzian humor with claustrophobic Cronenbergian dread, POPPING CHERRIES reminds us of the mistakes we've made and why we made them as our childhood was yanked from under our feet.

Chad Fjerstad is an author living in Los Angeles, CA. He grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and has spent the majority of his adult years working in music and film. Popping Cherries is Fjerstad's debut work of literary fiction.