Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl

by David Michaelis

Sam Simon looks back on the days of his adolescence, when he was one of the first boys at a previously all-girl school, and had a crush on Berry Mansfield

Genres: Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1989

About the author

David Michaelis grew up in Cambridge, Mass. and Washington, D. C., was educated at Concord Academy and Princeton University, and is the author of the national bestsellers N. C. WYETH: A Biography (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998; available from Harper Perennial), which won the 1999 Ambassador Book Award for Biography, given by the English-Speaking Union of the United States, and SCHULZ AND PEANUTS: A Biography (Harper, 2007; Harper Perennial), a National Book Critics Circle Best Recommended Book, among other honors. He lives in New York City and Tenants Harbor, Maine, with his wife the documentary film producer Nancy Steiner, and their family.

Reviews

[Rahadyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a scholarship student at a Manhattan private school in the 1970's, which reinforced my viewpoint of being on the outside looking in, despite my having many friends and friendly acquaintances that I still have, more than 30 years later.



That said, I have a morbid fascination with novels or films about prep schools. I was first introduced to David Michaelis via his figuring in _Mushroom_, a nonfiction work about a Princeton student who figures out how to build an atomic bomb from declassified materials.



_Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl_ is Michaelis's only novel and quite enjoyable. I intend to check out the biographies he's written, about N.C. Wyeth and Charles Schulz.

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly can't say if this book is truly any good or not. I have loaned it to others in the hopes that they might find it as remarkable as I do. Not one of them has reported enjoying it even half as much as me.
I have absolutely no objectivity here. I was about twelve or so when I discovered Michaelis' novel. It was the first piece of adult, contemporary literature I ever stumbled upon -- it had no place in the canon as an established classic and it sure as hell was not made with children in mind. It was a grown-up book but not the kind you could find at a department store (Messrs. King, Grisham, etc.). It opened my eyes to a much larger world that was far more complex than what I had known but also undeniably compelling in its strange mixture of sex and melancholy.
I doubt I'm capable of writing a functional review of this book. It's just way too close to me to pretend at any sort of objectivity. It's a cliche but it's also very, very true: My life would not be the same without this book. It saved me from a lifetime of reading bestsellers and pushed me right through the door of modern literature. Nothing was the same after I read it and I am so damn grateful for it.
This is not an easy book to find. I know because I lost it once and had to find it again. Should it stumble across your path, consider it a sign and read it.

[Rachael]

I read this 20 years ago, & thought I liked it. Now I found it pretentious