Hard Feelings

by Don Bredes

Sixteen-year-old Bernie Hergruter decides to return to Long Island, from which he has fled to seek his fortune in Ohio and where he must confront his school enemy, his academic standing, his girlfriends, his family, and himself

Paperback

First published February 1, 1977

About the author

I am a freelance writer of novels, essays, and screenplays and a teacher of writing and contemporary literature. I live in the hills of northern Vermont.

I earned an MFA in Fiction from the University of California at Irvine and an AB in English Composition from Syracuse University. I have been a Wallace Stegner Fellow in fiction at Stanford University, and I've been awarded grants for my fiction by the Vermont Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

My first novel, HARD FEELINGS (Atheneum, 1977), was an American Library Association Best Book in 1977 and a 20th Century-Fox film release in 1982. My published work includes four other novels, MULDOON (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1982), and my Hector Bellevance mystery/suspense trilogy, COLD COMFORT (Harmony Books, 2001), THE FIFTH SEASON (Three Rivers Press, 2005), and THE ERRAND BOY (Three Rivers Press, 2009).



My new novel, an edgy young adult fantasy called POLLY AND THE ONE AND ONLY WORLD, will be released in October by Green Writers Press. 

Those who may be interested in my writing may visit my Web site, my Don Bredes page on Facebook, or my Author's Page at Amazon.

I've published short stories, essays, and book reviews in a variety of publications, including "The New York Times Sunday Magazine," "The Los Angeles Times Book Review," and "Paris Review."

Two of my screenplay adaptations have been independently produced and released internationally as feature-length films, "Where the Rivers Flow North," starring Rip Torn and Michael J. Fox, and "A Stranger in the Kingdom," with an ensemble cast including Ernie Hudson and Martin Sheen. They're available on DVD.

When I'm not writing or teaching, I like to cook, garden (mostly vegetables), read, play tennis, hike, birdwatch, fly kites, look at the stars and galaxies, fish for trout, ride my mountain bike, snowshoe, and cross-country ski, as the seasons permit.

Reviews

[Wentworth Boughn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read the coming of age novel, HARD FEELINGS, when I was coming of age as a teenager, and I was impressed and embarrassed by its raunchiness. I reread it as a middle aged man and the raunchiness maintained itself well. Bernie’s sexual exploits are funny and explicit. Besides trying to get laid, Bernie contends with alcoholic parents, the pressure of tennis competition, and a deranged, violent bully who wants to kill him. The meandering narration is disjointed, jumping around from incident to incident and past and present tense, but it is still a fun read.

[MerryMeerkat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite as good as the first one but definitely still a great, fun read. At the end of this volume, we are to the point to where I've seen in the tv show, so I'm really excited to read the next volume in this. TV show for the most part stays relatively close to the comic.



This volume starts with a flash back to Lori and Shane having had sex. The tv show makes a much bigger deal of this then the comic, so I'm enjoying the comic a bit better. Lori already knows she's pregnant and there's no crazy scene with Glen trying to find her a pregnancy test. A few new people join the group.

Art wise, good. Though the scene where Carl gets shot, I feel looks terrible. He's drawn almost like a character and not a child. We meet the people on the farm, and the barn is revealed quickly and honestly, not like the TV show where the group finds out about the zombies accidently. I guess they have to make it more dramatic for tv.

[Mike McPadden · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great coming-of-age (and death) shocker from the era of Paul Zindel expanding the parameters of Young Adult novel possibilities, and it foreshadows 21st century School Shooting USA, to boot. A movie version exists—somewhere.