David & Della

by Paul Zindel

Meet teenage playwright David Mahooley. Ever since his ex-girlfriend tried to skewer herself on the school flagpole, he can't bring himself to write a word. Enter fast-talking Della Jones, an actress and writing coach with a gym bag full of massage oil, vodka, houseplants, and experiments in mutual grooming. Her outrageous ways are enough to set David's mind and heart spinning and inspire a new kind of play.

Genres: Young Adult, Fiction

Library Binding

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Paul Zindel was an American author, playwright and educator.

In 1964, he wrote The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, his first and most successful play. The play ran off-Broadway in 1970, and on Broadway in 1971. It won the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was also made into a 1972 movie by 20th Century Fox. Charlotte Zolotow, then a vice-president at Harper & Row (now Harper-Collins) contacted him to writing for her book label. Zindel wrote 39 books, all of them aimed at children or young adults. Many of these were set in his home town of Staten Island, New York. They tended to be semi-autobiographical, focusing on teenage misfits with abusive or neglectful parents. Despite the often dark subject matter of his books, which deal with loneliness, loss, and the effects of abuse, they are also filled with humor. Many of his novels have wacky titles, such as My Darling, My Hamburger, or Confessions of A Teenage Baboon.

The Pigman, first published in 1968, is widely taught in American schools, and also made it on to the list of most frequently banned books in America in the 1990s, because of what some deem offensive language.

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yesterday I finished reading another book, this time I went back to an author I wish I had known in my younger days. I think reading his books then would have made me a happier teen and more interested in reading. It's Paul Zindel's 1993 YA novel DAVID AND DELLA. Zindel speaks to me, to the younger me, the voice of what I felt like as a teen that not a lot of other authors were discussing. This novel, one of his later works, still holds up for me. I once read a complaint by a reviewer who said that he got tired of Zindel writing the same teenage stories. I think it works, and most authors tend to write in the same vein as the last. If you come upon something that works and sells, you stick to it. It's a pretty common practice. Zindel's work is also very autobiographical which I love, so of course, he's going to keep going back to the same themes, all the best authors do it. I think it's self-therapy really. Anyway, DAVID AND DELLA is a funny book with dark themes, as is the case with Zindel. I really connected to it because in this novel David is a teenage playwright whose girlfriend Kim was sent to a nuthouse because she tried to kill herself, attempting to jump from a second-story biology classroom window and shishkabob herself on a flag pole. Since then David has been stuck with writer's block. That's when he meets Della, another teenager who thinks she can help him write something better, with meaning. So while David's parents are away (they are neglectful and are always traveling without him) he and Della set off on trying to mold David into writing something real and about love, something Della says David really knows nothing about. But Della is hiding deep secrets herself. She is a teenage alcoholic who is constantly going to Bellview for treatments, she's unmarried, has a baby, but still has dreams of becoming big. It's a story about love and dreamers who make things a reality, but at the cost of, as a writer, exposing their true feelings on the page, of allowing their real thoughts and feelings to be exposed to the world and market it as true art. I really connected with this book because I, too, am trying to write and I totally understood the message of reaching inside of your own life and feelings and views and putting them on paper. I'd highly recommend this book not just because it's Paul Zindel, though that doesn't hurt, but because it's about something that Zindel just tapes into so well that really connects with me, and I think that I may not be alone in this assumption of his work. The sad story is that most of Zindel's work is out of print unless you purchase them through Kindle, then they're all available, and I'd highly recommend them. They're dark and funny and Zindel is a voice that should be heard. He's the friend I never had in high school.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

More angst-ridden teenagers. This was pretty short at least. Certainly there's not a lot of a plot if the characters are well-adjusted, level headed adults, but after a while, these books start to get a bit formulaic. Still well-written, the characters are still--fairly--likeable and I can relate to the tortured artist aspect of these young people. It would just be nice if the conflict weren't ALWAYS internal struggle or being emotionally extravagant. I don't know, it was a phase of my life where I read too many wallowy books about immaturity and unreciprocated love.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

David is a lonely young man whose parents are always "on assignment" and out of the country. In order to try to break through his writer's block, he gets Della's number from an advertisement. Della is everything David isn't: impetuous, free-spirited and alcoholic. But she seems to open up the creative side of David. She gives him the courage to start writing again, to face what happened between him and his girlfriend, and to even confront his parents. Now, he must try to help Della conquer her drinking problem and learn to trust again.

[Sylvia · Rating 3 out of 5]

David has been struggling with writer's block ever since his girlfriend, Kim, tried to jump out of a window. He answers an advertisement for writing lessons and meets Della, a talented but troubled actress, who is convinced that she can become David's inspiration.

David finally wrote a play, a love story. But each new scene brings startling revelations about Della's past.

An inspiring story, liked it.

[Devin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this book was too much like Zindel's " I Never Loved Your Mind". Except Della doesn't runaway in the end. I highly a doubt somebody of 16 would fall in love with a girl that quick, so I found David a little whiney.