The Varmint

The Varmint is the book that defined the American prep school story, and nothing written since has matched its anarchic joy. When Dink Stover arrives at Lawrenceville with stolen street signs and a suitcase full of trouble, he's not sure what he wants from life except to make sure it's never boring. What follows is a portrait of adolescence at its most reckless and tender: hijinks involving flour bombs and midnight raids, schemes that somehow always go gloriously wrong, and the slow discovery that the friends you make while getting into trouble might be the only ones worth keeping. Johnson's genius lies in his balance of uproarious comedy with something quieter and more devastating the moments when boys become aware that childhood is ending, that the people around them are about to scatter into the world, that this particular band of misfits won't last forever. The Tennessee Shad, Hungry Smeed, Doc Macnooder these names have lived in the hearts of generations of readers, and they endure because Johnson understood something true about male friendship and loyalty that most writers miss entirely. This is a book that will make you laugh until you cry, and then cry for reasons you can't quite explain.