Where Do You Stop?: The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences, and Observations of Peter Leroy

The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy #4

by Eric Kraft

"Where do you stop?" is the question posed by Miss Rheingold, the intoxicating new teacher of Peter Leroy's junior high school class. That question forms the basis of a science paper that Peter spends thirty years trying to complete-along the way exploring quantum physics, entropy, epistemology, principles of uncertainty and discontinuity, and a range of Life's Big Questions.

Deceptively simple and warmly engaging, Eric Kraft's novel is an ingenious portrait of a small American town in the 1950s, when the atom seemed to hold the key to the mystery of creation, as well as the power to utterly destroy it.

Genres: Fiction, Coming Of Age

181 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Eric Kraft grew up in Babylon, New York, on the South Shore of Long Island, where he was for a time co-owner and co-captain of a clam boat, which sank. He met or invented the character Peter Leroy while dozing over a German lesson during his first year at Harvard. The following year, he married his muse, Madeline Canning; they have two sons. After earning a Master’s Degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Kraft taught school in the Boston area for a while, moonlighting as a rock music critic for the Boston Phoenix. Since then, he has undertaken a variety of hackwork to support the Kraft ménage and the writing of the voluminous work of fiction that he calls The Personal History, Adventures, Experiences & Observations of Peter Leroy. He has been the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; was, briefly, chairman of PEN New England; and has been awarded the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature.

Reviews

[Ron · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is about remembering, and working through the fogs and impedimenta of time to try to pick out what remains vital from the terrazzo tile of memory. It is about the integration of public schools in the late 50s and early 60s, and the not-very-subtle resistance of authorities in Long Island. It is about the joy of making things, the frustrations of failure to make things work right, and the persistence to keep at it. It is about progressive education, the attempt to teach quantum physics to 7th graders, and the moment when a kid realizes that school is supposed to make you think for yourself, and how scary, frustrating and liberating that realization can be. And it is about the onset of adolescence and the sudden interest of a boy in a teacher's legs, and in the way an appealing older girl's scent seems to diffuse throughout a room, giving new insight into the question of "where do you stop?".
I am not quite sure why this reading was not as totally delightful and inspirational as my first reading some years ago, which got me started on Kraft and his Peter Leroy stories. My memory had more prominence given to the schoolroom aspect of the Big Questions, more tween discussion about epistemology and ontology, about how we know, and how we try to figure out what the question is really all about. There was less of that, more of Porky White testing out his Cap'n Clam ideas, Peter and Raskol plotting clever practical jokes, Guppa working out wild ideas for goofy projects, and Peter trying not-so-subtly to snuggle up to Ariane as they watch afternoon movies on TV.
I will remember the Big Questions: When is now? Where does the light go when the light goes out? Where do you stop? What is the biggest question of all? Why are you you? and What really happens? I will remember Peter and Guppa happily accepting the presence of black people in Babbington, while Peter's father has a crisis of conscience.

[Tyler Huelsman · Rating 4 out of 5]

One receives the impression that this book is targeted towards a younger demographic, and yet it is a nostalgic read in a way that younger readers will most likely not fully appreciate. This is a book about the mind of a younger person and the novelty of discovery that for most will eventually wear off. It offers the notion that younger minds might penetrate reality in a way that older ones cannot, and that they can then emerge from the experience far more appreciative of the knowledge gained. Eric Kraft's story is refreshing in its optimism, but more importantly, perceptive in its honest and simple observations regarding some of life's biggest questions.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorites of Kraft's - brings issues of race and desegregation into the mix of issues raised (in a cheerful, tongue-in-cheek kind of way).

[Milt · Rating 4 out of 5]

stationary bike read