The Tragic Age

January 5, 2015
Seventeen-year-old Billy Kinsey has a low opinion of the world, the result of watching too much television, seeing how wealth has rendered his parents empty and purposeless, and grieving the death of his twin, Dorie, who died when they were 11. Then Twom, a muscly troublemaker, enters the picture. Eventually, Billy, Twom, Twom’s girlfriend, and Billy’s geeky neighbor start breaking into houses in their affluent San Diego community. They don’t steal; they just try on other lives. Around that time, Gretchen, Dorie’s onetime best friend, comes back to town. Suddenly Billy has friends and a girlfriend, both of which mess with his negative worldview, but the good (Gretchen) is too good to last, and the bad (breaking and entering) escalates. Billy makes for a mordant, smart, and angry protagonist, but when debut author Metcalfe, a screenwriter and playwright, amps up the melodrama with a car chase, a shooting, and a Grand Guignol ending that dooms some while reawakening Billy, readers may feel some of the cynicism that Billy has shed. Ages 14–up. Agent: Linda Chester, Linda Chester and Associates.

Starred review from January 1, 2015
Less Than Zero (1985) meets Catcher in the Rye (1951) in this biting bildungsroman.Whip-smart, 17-year-old speed metal drummer Billy Kinsey has a port-wine stain on his face and a chip on his shoulder. He no longer sees the point in trying to connect with others after watching his twin sister, Dorie, die of cancer and his lottery-winning parents' marriage disintegrate. All this changes when he meets Twom Twomey, a tattooed dyslexic with the soul of a poet. Together with Deliza, a poor little rich girl who lusts after Twom, and Ephraim, a skinny computer hacker, they take out their anger on the 1 percent by breaking into local mansions and using them as crash pads for eating, playing computer games and sex. Then the unthinkable happens: Billy falls for a girl who's the sunny opposite of Twom. Now that Billy has something real at stake, his secret life begins to unravel with catastrophic results. Not everyone survives, and Billy is left hoping adults understand "It's not our fault, really. It's this age we're at. The tragic age." Written in an insightful, frenetic tone that occasionally turns surreal, Metcalfe's debut novel is a sexy, violent portrayal of disengaged youth attempting to feel something authentic in the antiseptic age of the Internet. Exhilarating and indicting. (Fiction. 14 & up)

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December 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-Billy is a depressed 17 year old trying to avoid attracting the attention of his parents, teachers, and peers. His twin sister died when they were eleven, and since then, Billy has worked hard to keep the balance at home while pretending everything is fine. Then Twom and Gretchen enter his life and everything starts to change. Billy finds himself falling for Gretchen. Then he convinces Twom and Ephraim, a computer nerd Billy has always tolerated, to start breaking into people's homes. The boys go along with the crimes because they enjoy the thrill; Billy does it so he can sleep without the nightmares that plague him. Just when things start going well, Gretchen's parents forbid her from seeing Billy and the breaking and entering "game" spirals out of control. The story picks up speed about halfway through, but starts slowly. Billy's first-person narration is broken up by interjected facts and sidebars throughout. These interruptions throw off some of the story's flow. As the characters are older teenagers, explicit language, drinking, and sex all take place. An additional purchase.-Natalie Struecker, Rock Island Public Library, IL

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2015
Grades 10-1 Metcalfe's YA debut is an ambitious attempt to explore the mind of the modern teenager. Seventeen-year-old Billy Kinsey's misanthropic existence takes a cosmic shift when he befriends Twom Twomey, whose lack of polished intellect is eclipsed by his raw, brawny, daring energy. Along with Twom's sexy girlfriend, Deliza, and Ephraim, the epitome of a hanger-on, Billy and Twom break into local houses in their fancy, if clinical, Southern California enclave. The Night Visitors, as they are dubbed, flagrantly raise the stakes until the unthinkable happens, and lives are irrevocably changed. Billy's narrative feels purposefully claustrophobic throughout, despite the fact that he finally has something like friends. It is only with his girlfriend, the decidedly good Gretchen, whose existence in Billy's circle strains credibility, that Billy manages to escape his own head. Despite the less-than-likable narrator, the story moves along at a good clip until the end, when some of the threads begin to unravel. Still, Metcalfe's taut prose and unique narrative choices mark him as a writer to watch.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)