Half His Age

Memoirist and former child actor McCurdy (I’m Glad My Mom Died) centers her provocative debut novel on a plucky high school senior who falls for her creative writing teacher. Raised by an indifferent, man-chasing single mother in Anchorage, Alaska, Waldo dumps yet another sexually clumsy boyfriend and becomes infatuated with her 40-year-old creative writing teacher, Mr. Korgy, despite his “gross decay of middle-aged-ness.” Though she tries to distract herself with online shopping and her retail job at Victoria’s Secret, her infatuation inevitably turns into a messy, all-consuming love affair. The relationship follows a predictable track, as the vast differences between their worlds incrementally erodes their trust and extinguishes the passion, but McCurdy crafts many clear-eyed depictions of the characters’ transgressions, particularly when they meet for sex and their mutual desire reaches a disastrous boiling point. Waldo makes for an appealing narrator, thanks to her precocious and razor-sharp observations, such as her withering view of adulthood’s “routinization of domestic life.” Readers are in for a wild ride. Agent: Peter McGuigan, Ultra Literary. (Jan.)