Here’s what I remember from my freshman year at Rutgers. I had an affair with an older man. I had an affair with a younger man. I sang the song “Moon River” at the grave of the man who wrote it. I visited a magnificent church in Venice and promptly threw up on the floor. And I realized that my friends, whom I’d always thought of as the minor characters in my story, were, in fact, the major characters.
It was 2007. It was a different world. I was 19 years old, and since most of this tale is drawn from the two journals I kept that year, I would prefer to let that girl tell the story. I am pleased to report that I survived that woebegone year with my sense of humor largely intact, but when I read over my story now it strikes me that I spent much of my freshman year at Rutgers living entirely in dreamland.
And then I finally woke up.
Drugs! Sex! Travel! Betrayal! None of these matters very much in Rutgers Girl: Naked in Italy. This new romantic comedy by the NPR humorist and award-winning author of Me and Orson Welles is the first-person journal of a 19 year-old Rutgers freshman who manages to navigate a tempestuous first year of college while maintaining her humor and her heart. And, OK, she does run headlong into drugs, sex, travel, and betrayal…but what we’re really witnessing is an extremely self-aware young woman in the process of inventing herself—right in front of our eyes.
Praise for the work of Robert Kaplow:
"Robert Kaplow hits all the high notes as a writer—he does meticulous and exhaustive historical research (when his story demands it) and then writes with a wonderful humor and, most importantly, a big heart.”
—Richard Linklater, writer/director Boyhood, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise
“A total joy."
—Edward Sorel, author/illustrator, Profusely Illustrated.
Genre: General Fiction
It was 2007. It was a different world. I was 19 years old, and since most of this tale is drawn from the two journals I kept that year, I would prefer to let that girl tell the story. I am pleased to report that I survived that woebegone year with my sense of humor largely intact, but when I read over my story now it strikes me that I spent much of my freshman year at Rutgers living entirely in dreamland.
And then I finally woke up.
Drugs! Sex! Travel! Betrayal! None of these matters very much in Rutgers Girl: Naked in Italy. This new romantic comedy by the NPR humorist and award-winning author of Me and Orson Welles is the first-person journal of a 19 year-old Rutgers freshman who manages to navigate a tempestuous first year of college while maintaining her humor and her heart. And, OK, she does run headlong into drugs, sex, travel, and betrayal…but what we’re really witnessing is an extremely self-aware young woman in the process of inventing herself—right in front of our eyes.
Praise for the work of Robert Kaplow:
"Robert Kaplow hits all the high notes as a writer—he does meticulous and exhaustive historical research (when his story demands it) and then writes with a wonderful humor and, most importantly, a big heart.”
—Richard Linklater, writer/director Boyhood, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise
“A total joy."
—Edward Sorel, author/illustrator, Profusely Illustrated.
Genre: General Fiction
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