I’m still grinding to get “project IDGAF” done by the end of the month, so here’s a snippet from it.
The average party has a handful of actual friends and a few people that think they’re friends. Not even the birthday girl knows who belongs in which category. High school friendships fail only in challenges like “Emily slacked off on the group project,” which is a pretty coarse filter compared to adulthood’s “every one of these bastards will betray me to steal my promotion.” Sociopaths succeed because they realize that love and friendship are not real. Human beings succeed when they realize that love and friendship are the only real things—but they don’t get promoted.
Outside the circle of undifferentiated friends are the neighbors and classmates invited to satisfy social responsibilities. Hopefully that protective circle will diffuse or, at worst, absorb the malice of the parentally-mandated assholes. The number of PMAs is directly proportional to the size and depth of the family pool.
Beth Tubnor’s parents had a ten foot deep Olympic-length in-ground pool.
This novel is a folk tale, meaning (among other things) it has a narrator. The narrator’s voice has much in common with that of Dear Abyss.