The First Thing Coming

Abbott (Harum Scarum) offers 22 loosely related stories about a group of young men growing up in Washington State in the 1950s. The boys love cars, hang out, talk about their girlfriends, learn to drink, and, all too soon, they grow old and have trouble adjusting to life on their own. In ""A Little Surprise,'' Pete Dwyer and his girlfriend Cheri Evers make love for the first time in the backseat of her parents' car, which is parked deep in the woods, but the tender moment that follows is abruptly shattered when Pete realizes the battery's gone dead. Years later, in ``A 1957 Ford,'' Pete, who by now drinks heavily and plans to reenter college after having been thrown out once, visits a well-off, independent Cheri, and when it becomes obvious she doesn't care for him, he leaves quietly in the middle of the night, crying and rationalizing that he no longer loves her. Sometimes self-conscious and overwritten, these stories nonetheless poignantly and comically capture the loss of innocence of boys growing up. (September)