Nobcor Alto

From BooklistA sure amount of skepticism comes with the reading of a movie star’s short story collection. Are they worthy of publication? Would I read them if written by an individual else? The stories in Palo Alto depict the confused experiences of teenagers in Palo Alto, California. The characters surprise with their maturity then devolve into moments of violent stupidity. Their beauteous lack of self-awareness drives the stories. In Killing Animals, Franco deftly addresses race as some wannabe delinquents find themselves in over their heads. Infatuations, drunkenness, and boredom find space allround the collection. Each story’s simplicity belies complexity of emotion and maturation. Franco conveys something we all know but get enjoyment from hearing again: growing up is painful yet wonderful. The deceptive simplicity likewise masks the complexity of Franco’s writing. His economic construction seems so simple throughout, but the stories end up approaching profundity. These stories were not published because James Franco is a movie star but because they are good. He makes the difficult appear simple, which only a gifted writer may do. –Blair Parsons

Review“Startling and original.”—The Economist

“[Franco] ends up utterly mirroring the undulations of a teenage mind.”—The New York Times Book Review

Nobcor Alto

A fiercely bright collection of stories about troubled California teenagers and misfits–violent and harrowing, from the astonishingly gifted actor and artisan James Franco.

Palo Alto is the debut of a surprising and powerful new literary voice. Written with an prompt sense of place–claustrophobic and ominous–James Franco’s collection traces the lives of an extended group of teenagers as they experiment with vices of all kinds, struggle with their families and one another, and succumb to self-destructive, ofttimes heartless nihilism. In “Lockheed” a young woman’s summer–spent working a dull internship–is abruptly upended by a spectacular incident of violence at a house party.  In “American History” a high school freshman attempts to impress a girl for the duration of a classroom skit with a realistic portrayal of a slave owner—only to have his feigned bigotry avenged. In “I Could Kill Someone,” a lonely teenager buys a gun with the intention of killing his high school tormentor, but begins to wonder with regards to his bully’s own inner life.

These linked stories, stark, vivid, and disturbing, are a compelling portrait of lives on the rough fringes of youth.

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Most helpful client reviews

102 of 128 persons found the following review helpful.
Don’t Quit Your Day Job
By William Kennedy
I’m frankly shocked by the positive reviews already posted for this collection of stories by James Franco. I was hoping to keep away from making the apparent statement, but I feel there’s no way around it – this book never would have seen the light of day if Franco was not an actor.

35 of 42 people found the following review helpful.
What Doesn’t Kill You
By J. Avery
I’m pretending hunkosaurus Franco didn’t write this. Moving on.

This is the stuff of each Creative Writing class you took as an undergrad. It’s all Holden Caulfield crabby and Bret Easton Ellis name-droppy; gruesome with those obnoxious one-liner sentences that are meant to be unfathomed in their brevity. The racial issues are slapped on strangely, and the tone is mushy oatmeal bland. “Killing Animals” was worth reading, but even then, it feels like Ellis fan fiction.

Now I’m pretending Franco did write them. Look my man, you have a lot of rich and successful friends. Many of whom are writers who like you because you’re a cool dude. You’re likewise a hunk. This is working versus you. If my mom wrote a book called “imma Real Gud Mama”, I’d tell her she was the next Faulkner.

Get a lot of unbiased advice, sweetheart. And call me.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
“black gaping gap”
By Amy
I had the experience (I had in the first place typed “pleasure” but I realize that would be dishonest of me) of reading Franco’s “Into the Black” (re-named “Jack-O” for the book) in Esquire for the duration of my final year as an undergrad originative writing major. Reading that story, knowing it had been published in such an honored magazine by an unknown writer, was like being punched in the face by somebody wearing a huge high school ring on each finger who had not long back totally his lavatory hygiene with that same fist.

The “black gaping gap” line is missing from the book, nevertheless the prose maintains the choppy, voiceless, faux-80′s-minimalism of that piece throughout. I commend to any person giving careful consideration to a purchase: go online, read “Into the Black.” If you love it then hey, good for you, James has a fan. If not, don’t bother, unless you are like me and feel the need to masochistically go through it all with a red pen.

Franco is a fine writer if your standards are “Creative Writing Intermediate Class.” These stories would not have wowed me in an modern or master class and they surely do not merit publishing. It is an insult to writing students everyplace to see this in print, peculiarly lauded by Amy Hempel and Mona Simpson (those endorsements almost made me cry). It is clear that if, like the rest of us, Franco had taken a four-year program, he could emerge as a decent writer. However his experience is slapdash and copycat and it shows. I have read far, far better stories by my peers and it is beyond discouraging and hindering knowing how hard they will have to work to ever see their work as exposed as Franco’s. I can not believe that Yale has accepted him as an English PhD student.

On a side note, a friend pointed out that Franco’s name is the same size as the title on the front cover, and we all had a good laugh.

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