10th Grade
by Joseph Weisberg
272 pages
(2002, Random House)

Reviews

"Tales of Teenage Angst, Both Real and Imagined"
The New York Times
February 14, 2002
by Janet Maslin

Although the mind-set of the sexually inquisitive teenage boy dominates American popular culture, it isn't that easy to replicate. The adult writer who revisits adolescence needs an expert memory and a thick skin. He risks sounding ridiculous, being dogged by invidious references to Holden Caulfield and being accused of having nothing important on his mind. But when this kind of comic, hormonally driven nostalgia clicks, it seems as easy as American pie.

Both Joseph Weisberg and David Henry Sterry revisit their teenage years in new books, one a novel about high school, the other a memoir of teenage prostitution. (The New Yorker's recent cartoon about a bookstore with a whole section for prostitutes' and strippers' writing was no joke.) For reasons of either astute marketing research or happenstance, these books are the same size and have covers in the same eye-catching bright blue, and in a way they tell similar stories. But it is the achievement of the novel, Mr. Weisberg's ''10th Grade,'' to sound like a real account, while Mr. Sterry's memoir has a whiff of fiction.

''Tenth Grade'' is exactly that, a year in the life of a New Jersey schoolboy named Jeremiah Reskin, known as Jeremy. And beyond going back to the kinds of experiences that his narrator weathers, Mr. Weisberg also returns to indigenous high school prose. Words of inordinate importance to Jeremy begin with capital letters (like Breast and Lunchroom). And ''Um Buenos Dias'' is the kind of thing he says in Spanish class. Jeremy's deadpan but devilishly accurate observations include the sight of Bullfighters, French wines and Roman ruins in the language classroom.

The ostensible excuse for this book is that Jeremy is taking Creative Composition with a teacher who doesn't pester him too much about punctuation. ''Besides I'm not writing this for class I'm just writing it,'' he explains, with typical spontaneity. ''I think I'll just give myself an A on it.'' Certainly he warrants a high grade for this book's way of identifying the real, character-defining forces at work amid the beguilingly silly stuff.

Needless to say, Jeremy spends most of his time thinking about nonacademic matters. Mr. Weisberg gives him a small, well-defined, coed group of friends and observes the group's dynamics knowingly. At a stage of life when back rubs and pseudo-profound questions count as sexual overtures, Jeremy's rival for the attentions of several girls is Douglas, ''the only person I know who can giggle and still look depressed.'' The funny, unassuming wisdom that makes ''10th Grade'' so disarming is evident when Jeremy sees Douglas this way:

''He's a really nice person I think who hates the world and also most people. Whatever you're discussing he can show you the people are full of it for example if you say Mr. Zeldof is a boring teacher Douglas says he's part of a centuries old education conspiracy to bore us to death.'' An assessment like that will be worth something long after high school is over.

The mall, the prom and the city (New York, where Jeremy's father works and where their awkward attempts at communication unfold) are among this book's landmarks. So it doesn't go far, but it makes the most of limited psychic terrain. In a coming-of-age story ultimately shaped by sexual awakening, Mr. Weisberg fondly and hilariously brings every tiny detail to life, and rarely tips his own hand as a grown-up. A book in which someone says ''My Mom cooks but it's all like hello do you know I'm a vegetarian?'' sounds uncannily like the work of a schoolboy taking notes.