The Every Boy

Henry Every, the titular boy in Shapiro's inventive but too precious debut novel, drowns under mysterious circumstances at the tender age of 15, leaving behind a mother who's a little obsessed with ant farms, a father devoted to his jellyfish and boxing, and five years' worth of diary entries written on 2,600 pages of loose-leaf graph paper. This "ledger... is... a catalog of life's wee tics and pangs... threadbare confessionals, overheard dialogue transcriptions, [and] stabs at investigative journalism." For his estranged parents, Hannah and Harlan, it's a window on the wacky inner life of a deeply (but quite happily) odd teenager. Henry's antics and observations are endearingly offbeat for the most part, but become cloying at times: in answer to the essay question "Who are you?" he "found himself starting at the Precambrian era and sifting through four and a half billion years worth of being ." Though Shapiro serves up some wise, lovely characterizations (Henry's grandma Lulu, for example), the mostly light-and-sweet narrative stalls in moments of self-conscious precocity, when the author's fascination with Henry resembles a narcissistic adolescent crush. Film rights have been optioned by Plan B, with Shapiro, whose documentary Murderball won an Audience Award at Sundance this year, attached to write and direct. Agent, Leslie Falk. (July)