Half His Age

An upcoming book to be published by Penguin Random House.

Autorentext

Jennette McCurdy

Klappentext

**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of I’m Glad My Mom Died comes “a thorny examination of power, lust, shame and rage” (Los Angeles Times) from “a writer able to capture some of the darkest parts of human nature with unflinching honesty and devastating humor” (NPR)

“Unapologetic and undeniable . . . If there was ever any doubt whether the narrative command that Jennette McCurdy displayed in her bestselling memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died might translate to fiction, let it henceforth be put to rest.”—*Elle

Waldo is ravenous. Horny. Blunt. Naive. Wise. Impulsive. Lonely. Angry. Forceful. Hurting. Perceptive. Endlessly wanting. And the thing she wants most of all: Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher with the wife and the kid and the mortgage and the bills, with the dead dreams and the atrophied looks and the growing paunch. She doesn’t know why she wants him. Is it his passion? His life experience? The fact that he knows books and films and things that she doesn’t? Or is it purer than that, rooted in their unlikely connection, their kindred spirits, the similar filter with which they each take in the world around them? Or, perhaps, it’s just enough that he sees her when no one else does.

Startlingly perceptive, mordantly funny, and keenly poignant, Half His Age is a rich character study of a yearning seventeen-year-old who disregards all obstacles—or attempts to overcome them—in her effort to be seen, to be desired, to be loved.

Leseprobe
1

It’s bad form to groan when a guy’s going down on you, I know that, but right now it’s hard not to.

“You taste so good,” he says, licking his lips.

“Thanks.”

Randy Julep’s fingers clamp down on my splayed-out thighs, his death grip tightening. His cunnilingus technique is underwhelming: Eyes shut reverently. Occasional mmms. Slimy tongue that loop-de-loops over and over like a carnival ride, mechanical and passionless.

“You know what, why don’t you just come up here?”

“You don’t want me to keep going?” he asks, cocking his head.

“No, let’s just . . . get to it.”

“O-okay, if you’re sure.” Randy tries and fails to hide his excitement as he whips a condom out from his pocket then runs his clammy hands through his mop of hair. The same mop of hair I found so mysterious when we met over the summer at that Fourth of July party. The same mop of hair that shielded his hooded eyes while we threw back red, white, and blue Jell-O shots, while we ate corn on the cob with too much butter, while we swam in Goose Lake and watched illegal fireworks burst in the sky. The mop of hair I found so intriguing. So seductive. And that I now just find greasy.

“You need help with that?” I ask as Randy struggles to rip open the wrapper.

“Um, would you?”

He chucks it at me, I tear it open and chuck it back at him. He kicks off his boxers and discards them in the corner.

I close my eyes and start moving my hands down, imagining I’m somewhere else, somewhere with someone I connect with, someone who gets me and who I get. It’s a shame. For a second, I really thought Randy could be the guy. He’s quiet and moody. I figured that must mean he had thoughts so riveting that he couldn’t utter them out loud or he’d spoil them.

“Your tits are beautiful,” he says.

“Thanks.”

“So beautiful,” he repeats, mashing and squishing them between his fingers like a kid with a ball of Play-Doh. “Your whole body is . . .”

“Thanks,” I say again, hesitantly. Maybe it is beautiful, my body. I wouldn’t know, since in the two years that I’ve had this new version of it, I’ve been much more consumed with dealing with it than appreciating it. Shaving it or scraping it or strapping it in or exfoliating it or lathering it or shoving a coarse cotton plug into it. Always doing something to stop my body from doing what it wants to do. Oozing or bursting or bleeding, making too much hair in the wrong places and not enough in the right ones.

I’m not used to this new body yet, with these new curves and stretch marks and this unrecognizable silhouette. It’s like my smaller-framed, flatter-chested body could no longer contain all that was inside it, so it expanded to make room. Now my body’s ahead of my mind and my mind needs to catch up. Needs to realize this thing isn’t an Airbnb. This is home now. Even if it doesn’t feel like it yet.

“You ready?” Randy asks, eyes narrowing with a weird intensity. I want to remind him this isn’t Apollo 13. It’s a couple kids about to f*** on a twin-sized bed.

“Yeah,” I say in a wispy sex voice that I feel like I’m supposed to use.

Randy pumps into me with a staccato pump, pump, pump. Same as they all do. Or at the least the three boys I’ve f***ed, all of them with their boners and their closed comedones and their way of touching my body like they’re fumbling for their car keys. No passion, no bond. Just sweat and bumping and genitals. Body parts in body parts.

It’s not for lack of trying. They’re trying. I’m trying too. But no matter how much spit or cum, how much dry-humping or making out, going down or eating out, petting or edging, sex always falls short. Feels clunky and perfunctory. Clumsy and performative. A blatant reminder of the misshapen puzzle pieces that are private parts.

And afterward, they re-buckle their pants and I re-clasp my bra and accept in the awkward silence the itchy fact that I settled for pleasure when I wanted connection, an itchy fact that I refuse to scratch by saying it out loud, so instead we go and get ice cream.

Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m the problem. My mom called me hard to love when I was seven and the phrase always stuck with me even though she swore she didn’t mean it twenty minutes later, and by two days later she denied she’d ever said it at all.

“You heard me wrong,” Mom explained after I brought it up on our weekly trip to the Dollar Zone for processed foods (jumbo bags of Cheetos and SunChips, a jar of Skippy, and a couple boxes of Hamburger Helper that usually expired before they got used) and essentials (toothpaste and toilet paper and trash bags so thin they ripped if you filled them all the way up) and usually one novelty item Mom couldn’t resist (a cream for cracked feet or any product with the word “detoxifying” in it).

“I dunno, those don’t seem like easy words to mishear,” I said.

She popped a stick of Big Red in her mouth and chomped down on it.

“Well just cuz they’re not easy words to mishear doesn’t mean you didn’t mishear ’em.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright. But just know I never said that. Maybe I said you were a lot. Because you are. You need a lot and you are a lot. That’s me being honest, not mean. But never would I ever say you’re hard to love.”

Problem solved, I thought. I’m not hard to love, I just need a lot and am a lot. And then I grabbed a coloring book I wanted, but thought better of it and set it back on the shelf. Maybe wanting things is what makes me a lot. If I could just want less, I’d be the right amount of person. The amount I’m supposed to be. The not-a-lot amount. The easy-to-love amount.

It’s an approach I’ve …