Cupertino Story

By Szymanowski, Matt

Book Id: WPLBN0003466811
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 0.9 MB
Reproduction Date: 9/20/2014

Title:	Cupertino Story
Author:	Szymanowski, Matt
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Fiction, Drama and Literature, Coming of Age
Collections:	Authors Community, Literature
Historic Publication Date:	2014
Publisher:	Wolves

Member Page:	Matt Szymanowski
Citation APA MLA Chicago Szymanowski, B. M. (2014). Cupertino Story. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.cc/

Description
Cupertino Story is a vivid and mesmerizing tale of troubled adolescents and misfits - a harrowing and perceptive fiction debut from a promising new literary voice. This raw and ominous portrait of a lost generation traces the lives of teenagers and their experiments with vices of all kinds, struggles with family and one another, as they succumb to passivity, self destructive and often heartless nihilism. Stevo lives in a world of casual privilege, acute moral entropy and reckless abandon. The weight of his older brother’s mysterious disappearance begins to permeate through his everyday life. After writing a disturbing school essay he’s put into therapy and given anti depressants. He’s continuously entranced by a mysterious new girl at school named Holly who may or may not be a high class call girl. His best friend Drake’s repressed homosexual bent becomes more evident with their drug induced adventures. The dizzying whirlwind of desperation takes Stevo through relentless parties in dot com villas, seedy bars, Santa Cruz bonfires, and also into the lesser known world of Silicon Valley after dark. Set in Szymanowski’s hometown, this cinematic and visceral work of fiction is a genuine and brutal portrait of the turbulent fringes of youth.

Excerpt
I swallow two Ritalins and see dark circles under my eyes in the reflection. Foam is forming and spilling from my mouth, splashing in the sink and getting on my jeans. The TV says the winds have pulled trees from the ground and flipped over cars, and roofs of houses have been torn off. They advise people to stay indoors if they can. There is too much danger outside in these harsh conditions, they say, and then a commercial comes on about ten dollar oil changes at Jiffy Lube. The branches of the tree outside the bathroom are swinging and whipping at the window and house so loud that my mom screams. In the reflection, my mom passes with a coffee mug in hand and a long coat on. She says this is the worst time to be remodeling and is complaining about the cold, about how the heater should work soon but the workers keep rescheduling because of the weather. Where is the remote? she yells. I can’t remember where I put the damn remote. The foam keeps collecting and spilling out of my mouth. I open my mouth wide and spit it all out so it splatters on the mirror and the sides of the sink and onto my stomach and in the foamy spit there are swirls of red and pink. Nate is smoking a joint while fitting his New York hat, looking in the full length mirror on the wall. He watches himself take a joint out of the drawer in his desk, light it first as he slowly puts his lips to it and begins to inhale so that the dry paper begins to crack and burn, the whole time closely looking at himself in the reflection, up and down. I take the joint and sit down on his chair and watch him watch himself. He’s got on tight, faded, dark blue jeans and a slim black shirt and an army jacket over his shirt. He folds his pants over his shoes, the black Cons. From down the hall the hum of the refrigerator becomes louder.