Now a USA Today Bestseller! A sparkingly witty, poignant debut novel
that is a Bright Lights, Big City for a post-Reagan, pre-Y2K
Philadelphia--for readers of Normal People, Sweetbitter, Modern
Lovers, and Less.
It's September 1987. Charlie Green is an eighteen-year-old romantic and
aspiring alcoholic, whose great wish is to fall in love with a
light-eyed girl on his first day of college and never look back. Charlie
believes in the magic of bars and girls. He believes he can use these
talismans to finally feel at home, an assurance his dim and privileged
childhood did not provide. At the Sansom Street Oyster House, he meets
Paula Henderson, a beautiful and deceptively soulful waitress who is the
most overqualified bar maid in all the city--and perhaps the most
alluring.
But there are obstacles in the Philly night between Charlie and his full
heart. Drunks, louts, boyfriends--heroes too. And in Paula's eyes,
Charlie becomes one. When she takes him home to New Hope, PA, to meet
her very Catholic mother, the young couple must contend with the
consequences of their pure love.
In this darkly comedic coming-of-age novel, Charlie Green needs to grow
up fast. At stake is his soul.
