I think you're going to like this.

It's the first novel from the one (other? heeheehee) great writer from my MA program.

It’s angry and ballistic and ridiculously funny, but man—it will break your heart. Nick Park is Korean Americans and hates himself and his parents for it, but hasn't quite has figured that out yet.

Delacorte is really behind this—lead YA title for summer, I think. It’s a coming of age story, so they slotted it YA, hoping for crossover, positioning Dave as sort of a grittier David Sedaris doing the Asian GOODBYE COLUMBUS.

Oh, it's called Girls For Breakfast. Because Nick has this idea about rescuing himself socially, and it's not always pretty. Or particularly sane. Like when he finally figures out his Asian eyes are a problem, so he starts wearing a baseball cap every day to cover them. Yeah, that's going to throw the other kids off.

He doesn't even realize what he is until he gets in trouble in high school and his parents drag him to a Korean church. The kids there inform him he's a banana. What? Yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Yellow? I'm yellow?

He's kinda baffled and highly disturbed. Eventually draws a line down his forearm with a highlighter to see if it matches. If it ever disappears, he knows he's a goner.

He does all this completely earnestly. He's 12, 14, 18, only gradually figuring it all out. In extremely painful spurts.

And Dave (David Yoo, the author), tells it with a brutal candor that will give you the shudders sometimes. But you'll be cracking up again a few lines later. It's so funny because it's so painfully ludicrous sometimes, yet totally believable, and the narator has no idea

Brace Yourself.

Update:

I got copies for both my nephews who are graduating this month. Will let you know their reactions once I get to Chicago and they actually read it. But I have a feeling this is the present they'll remember.

And I have never posted an ad on my site before, even a quasi ad, but since it's my buddies first novel, and I can't remember how to upload a pic to my site:

Suddenly it's bookwars at my world.

The good kind. In the middle of five books at once.

Three of my friends released books within two weeks. Never even had two within two years, before. And then there's that True Story book by my old NYT Magazine hero that I can't put down. And I someone got me to pick up Rimbaud, finally, "A Season in Hell," and this Jean Genet book was waiting for me at the bookstore, which I had ordered months ago and never remembered, and they're incredible.

Reading a little of all of them. Can't figure out which one to pick up at any moment.

Writer heaven.

The one I've been meaning to tell you more about though . . .

Maybe I should add a separate entry for that.

Update:

Oh, the three friends' books:

• Girls For Breakfast.
• The Beliefnet Guide to Evangelical Christianity.
• The Genius Factory.

A bit more on them here.

All this outrage over steroids in sports, how come no one ever bats an eye about them in Hollywood?

I just watched Christian Bale tell Charlie Rose with a straight face that he gained 100 pounds in five months for Batman Begins. (Wednesday's show.) A 100 pounds? Are you kidding me?

All or most muscle, presumably, since the assignment was to beef up, not get fat. Few athletes can pack on 20 pounds of muscle in a year without steroids. If a bodybuilder could do that each year, he could go from a muscular 200-pounds to 400-pound Hercules over the course of his twenties. Even Arnold never approached anything like that. And he cops to steroids to get where he did.

Twenty pounds in a month without steroids? Even for one month, the idea is ludicrous. Five in a row? Come on. Not for Arnold, especially not for Christain.

Even with steroids, I don't think 100 pounds is possible; I think he's grossly exaggerating. But he might has well have said, "For this role I jabbed a needle into my butt every morning, and watched my nutsack shrivel into a tiny little peapod."

And Charlie only asked about his obsessiveness.

We hear these virtual admissions of steroid use from actors prepping for roles all the time. How come no one ever calls them on the obvious? Or even raises the question?