Yes, THAT James Franco

Book # 33 - Palo Alto Stories by James Franco.


To be honest, I wasn't really sure what to expect when husband brought this home for me (he found a copy of it cheap at our favourite used/remainder book store). I like James Franco as an actor a lot, but that doesn't mean he's going to be a good writer.
Well, some of his short stories aren't bad. They're all terribly uncomfortable in a lot of ways, all dealing with teenaged drugs and sex and drinking and violence (and admittedly, I was an extremely straight and narrow teenager, so events described in these stories are very much out of my frame of reference). I think "American History" was the best one, because it was uncomfortable, but there did also seem to be some emotional payoff there, a little more resonnance.

Because, while the stories all seemed to be interlocking with some reoccuring characters, but I began to find that they all spoke with the same voice. Which gets really repetative when they're all talking about the same thing all the time. I don't know though, maybe that was the point and Franco was trying to point out that all the kids of this generation speak with the same bored, disenfranchised, violent, teenaged ennui. And if that's true, then this book was also fucking depressing.