Dough Boy

Marino, an English professor and playwright, clearly knows teenagers as well as drama and comedy—and effectively meshes all three in this insightful first novel. Tristan, the pudgy, levelheaded and thoroughly sympathetic 15-year-old who narrates, spends alternate weeks with his recently divorced professor parents, each of whom is involved with someone who is overweight. In his comical commentary, he explains how his contentment with his highly functional family wanes when the daughter of his mother's likable beau, Kelly ("so gorgeous I was embarrassed to be alive," according to Tristan), comes back to live with Frank, her father, in whose home Tristan's mother now resides. Self-righteous and nutrition-obsessed, Kelly criticizes her father and Tristan for their girth; she begins dating Marco, Tristan's arrogant so-called best friend, from whom the hero feels increasingly estranged ("Marco was now very popular at school, and somehow that gave me recognition, like a backup singer"); and she drives a sharp wedge between her father and Tristan's mother. Tristan's candid, wry narrative brims with on-target observations (e.g., "Fairness comes in small lumps. Unfairness comes in barrels," he notes, discussing Kelly's meteoric rise to popularity at school and his own comparative anonymity). Readers will easily feel the boy's anger and will applaud his resilience and resolve to remain true to himself. The story's supporting players—especially Tristan's parents—help make this a winning debut, at once humorous and heartrending. Ages 14-up. (Oct.)