Good Times Are Killing Me » (Reprint)

Nationally syndicated cartoonist Lynda Barry's moving, quirky and honest first novel about a young girl's coming of age--which has also been a hit off-Broadway play--is back in print, with new artwork by the author. Edna Arkins beckons the reader to stay awhile and experience her funny, sad, turbulent world. The Good Times Are Killing Me is her story. Lynda Barry reveals her masterful way with story, memory, and feelings, and anyone who lingers in Edna Arkins's world will be the better for it.

Publishers Weekly

Edna Arkins, the young white narrator of this first novel, describes her coming of age in a racially mixed neighborhood and her friendship with Bonna Willis, a black girl. Their camaraderie is against ``the rules'' imposed by others but survives anyway. The novel, written as a series of vignettes, evokes memories of adolescence that many will probably share: the loneliness, the dares, the music lessons, the threats. The reader also catches a glimpse of Edna's family with all their idiosyncrasies. Her cousin Steve, for example, always repeats a particular menacing phrase every time he is alone with her and, as Edna says, ``probably always will . . . even when we are both as old and shriveled up as two ancient pieces of gum stuck under a chair.'' Barry conveys the anguish and confusion of youth discovering that society is riddled with prejudice, and her light touch is balanced by respect for her characters and their problems. The book also includes 18 richly colored illustrations by the author, a syndicated cartoonist. (Nov.)