The Porcupine of Truth

by Bill Konigsberg

Overview

The Stonewall Book Award-winning novel from the author of Openly Straight and Honestly Ben!

"Words like 'brilliant' are so overused when praising novels--so I won't use that word. I'll just think it." -- Benjamin Alire Sáenz, author of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

"Undeniably human and unforgettably wise, this book is a gift for us all." -- Andrew Smith, author of Grasshopper Jungle

Carson Smith is resigned to spending his summer in Billings, Montana, helping his mom take care of his father, a dying alcoholic he doesn't really know. Then he meets Aisha Stinson, a beautiful girl who has run away from her difficult family, and discovers a secret regarding his grandfather, who disappeared without warning or explanation decades before. Together, Carson and Aisha embark on an epic road trip to try and save Carson's dad, restore his fragmented family, and discover the "Porcupine of Truth" in all of their lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780545648936
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	05/26/2015
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	440,112
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.30(d)
Lexile:	HL670L (what's this?)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Bill Konigsberg is the author of Openly Straight, which won the SCBWI Sid Fleischman Award for Humor and was named to the YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults list; The Porcupine of Truth, which won the Stonewall Book Award and was named a Booklist Editors' Choice selection; and Out of the Pocket, which won the Lambda Literary Award. Bill lives in Chandler, Arizona, with his husband, Chuck. Please visit him online at www.billkonigsberg.com and @billkonigsberg.

Editorial Reviews

04/06/2015
Konigsberg (Openly Straight) eloquently explores matters of family, faith, and sexuality through the story of 17-year-old Carson Smith, whose therapist mother has dragged him from New York City to Billings, Mont., where his alcoholic father is dying. After Carson meets Aisha, whose conservative Christian father threw her out of the house when he discovered she is a lesbian, the teens embark on a multistate road trip, chasing down fragmentary clues that might lead them to find Carson’s long-absent grandfather. Strained parent-child relationships are laced throughout this story—on top of Carson and Aisha’s anger toward their respective fathers, Carson’s mother only talks to him in detached therapyspeak (“I truly hear underneath the sarcasm that you’re feeling pain, Carson”), and Carson’s father hasn’t put his own paternal abandonment behind him. Bouts of humor leaven the characters’ intense anguish in a story that will leave readers thinking about inherited traits (whether an oddball sense of humor or a tendency to overdrink), the fuzzy lines between youth and adulthood, and the individual nature of faith. Ages 14–up. Agent: Linda Epstein, Jennifer De Chiara Literary Agency. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Porcupine of Truth:

Winner of the Stonewall Book Award
Winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Children's/Young Adult
A YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection

"Words like 'brilliant' are so overused when praising novels--so I won't use that word. I'll just think it." -- Benjamin Alire Sáenz, author of Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

"Bill Konigsberg's The Porcupine of Truth is at once heartwarming and heartbreaking, a funny and thought-provoking road trip with remarkable friends Carson and Aisha, who share tough lessons about mending fractures, forging bonds, and discovering grace. Undeniably human and unforgettably wise, this book is a gift for us all." -- Andrew Smith, author of Grasshopper Jungle and Winger

• "Konigsberg weaves together a masterful tale of uncovering the past, finding wisdom, and accepting others as well as oneself." -- School Library Journal, starred review

• "Konigsberg... crafts fascinating, multidimensional teen and adult characters. A friendship between a straight boy and a lesbian is relatively rare in YA fiction and is, accordingly, exceedingly welcome." -- Booklist, starred review

"Equal parts funny and profound." -- Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Openly Straight:

Winner of the Sid Fleischman Award for Humor
YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Selection
Lambda Literary Award Finalist

"Funny, unexpected, peppered with terrific dialogue -- and best of all, achingly honest." -- Ned Vizzini, author of It's Kind of a Funny Story and House of Secrets

"For anybody who ever wished they could be someone else (and who hasn't?), Openly Straight provides a fun and intriguing, twisting-and-turning romp through sexuality, identity, friendship, and love." -- Alex Sanchez, author of Rainbow Boys and Boyfriends with Girlfriends

"Bill Konigsberg hands a great high concept to a really compelling narrator and presents us with a terrific read. Openly Straight is smart, funny, and unflinching. Read this book." -- Chris Crutcher, author of Deadline, Whale Talk, and Period 8

"Konigsberg's lovely novel invites us to walk with Rafe through his season of assumed identity and his costly emergence into honesty. It's beautiful. It's a story of salvation." -- The New York Times Book Review

• "Lambda Literary Award-winner Konigsberg has written an exceptionally intelligent, thought-provoking, coming-of-age novel about the labels people apply to us and that we, perversely, apply to ourselves... Openly Straight is altogether one of the best gay-themed novels of the last ten years." -- Booklist, starred review

• "Readers and discussion groups looking for new and deeper ways to think about what it means to live honestly in a world that sorts by labels will find this fresh and evocative." -- The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred review

"For a thought-provoking, creative, twenty-first-century take on the coming-out story, look no further." -- The Horn Book Magazine

"An original, thought-provoking, hilarious story about the importance of embracing your true identity, and the cost to yourself and others when you don't." -- Julie Ann Peters, author of Luna and Keeping You a Secret

"Openly Straight sports a sharp plot with a twist, sympathetic (and totally hot) characters, and universal appeal. It's a must-read for openly everyone!" -- Lisa McMann, bestselling author of the Wake Trilogy

Praise for Honestly Ben:

"To characterize Honestly Ben (even though labeling feels so wrong after reading this book), I would first call it hilarious. But also touching! And absolutely necessary." -- Jay Asher, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Thirteen Reasons Why and What Light

• "Konigsberg has again done a remarkable job developing characters and inviting readers to consider the meaning of friendship with all its rewards and challenges. Extremely well written, this novel of ideas is deeply satisfying and as honest as its appealing protagonist." -- Booklist, starred review

• "Well-rounded characters take readers from serious, thoughtful discussions to typical teen pranks with ease . . . Equal parts serious and funny as it addresses homophobia, hazing rituals, and cheating while also delighting readers with a slice-of-life tale set at a private academy." -- School Library Journal, starred review

• “Konigsberg again realistically explores what happens when one’s self butts up against . . . the world’s expectations and assumptions . . . The result is a refreshingly honest exploration of modern relationships and an understanding that love can take many shapes and forms.” -- Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Honestly Ben is funny, complex, joyful, heartbreaking, and exceedingly wise all at once. A teenager with any question about the right way to live couldn't ask for a better read." -- Geoff Herbach, author of Anything You Want and Stupid Fast

"It's hard to write a good sequel, keeping what people loved about the first book, but adding something fresh and new. Not surprisingly, Bill Konigsberg pulls it off wonderfully in Honestly Ben." -- Brent Hartinger, author of Geography Club and Three Truths and a Lie

From the Publisher

★ 03/01/2015
Gr 9 Up—Carson's mother thwarts his summer plans when she drags him from New York City to Montana. He wasn't especially looking forward to working at a frozen yogurt shop, but it couldn't be worse than staying with his ailing (and alcoholic) father, a man he hasn't seen in 14 years. Aisha Stinson has been sleeping at the Billings Zoo since coming out to her ultra-conservative father. After a chance meeting, Carson and Aisha recognize each other as kindred spirits. Aisha comes to stay with Carson's family, and the pair soon unearth family secrets in the basement. They set off on a roadtrip to uncover the root cause of three generations of estrangement. As they pursue a reconciliation with Carson's missing grandfather, both teens wrestle with their own strained family relationships. Konigsberg perfectly depicts the turbulent intensity of a new friendship. Carson is an intensely likable, hilarious, and flawed narrator. There are no true villains in the well-developed cast of characters, just people trying to do their best and frequently failing. VERDICT Konigsberg weaves together a masterful tale of uncovering the past, finding wisdom, and accepting others as well as oneself.—Tony Hirt, Hennepin County Library, MN

School Library Journal

2015-02-16
A straight, white wisecracking atheist from New York City finds both his mind and heart opened when he spends a summer in Billings, Montana, with his estranged, dying father. On his first day in Billings, Carson meets Aisha, a fellow wisecracker from one of the few black families in Billings. Aisha's religious Christian father has kicked her out of their home for being a lesbian. Carson impulsively offers her a place to stay, and his mother and father reluctantly agree. The four of them sharing a home—Carson, Aisha, Carson's mother, who communicates almost exclusively in therapy-speak, and Carson's father, sometimes bitter, sometimes vulnerable, usually drunk—could fill a book on its own. But when Carson and Aisha discover evidence that Carson's grandfather, who disappeared when Carson's father was a child, might be findable, the two embark on a far-reaching road trip. The pacing is occasionally uneven, and some of the devices that keep Carson and Aisha on their journey are a bit too convenient, but the story tackles questions about religion, family, and intimacy with depth and grace. The mystery of Carson's grandfather is resolved with bittersweet thoroughness, and Aisha's storyline comes to a hopeful, if also painful, resolution of its own. Equal parts funny and profound. (Fiction. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews

Take a look at seventeen-year-old Carson’s summer vacation: he’s in Billings, Montana, with his father, who is an alcoholic and dying, and his mother, who is a psychologist. Carson would rather have stayed in New York City, working at the frozen yogurt store, but familial duty has called. First stop: the Billings zoo. What better place is there to be dropped off while your mom tries to “settle” your father? It turns out to be a very fortuitous place for Carson, as he meets a ridiculously beautiful girl who changes his life. Aisha is homeless, and to Carson’s chagrins, a lesbian. But the two become best friends and embark on a journey, literally and figuratively, spanning three states, three generations, and several obstacles due to their different lifestyles. Carson discovers a journal and some letters written by his grandfather, some of which were to his now-estranged son—Carson’s father. Carson’s mission becomes discovering why his father never received the letters, and learning if his grandfather is even alive after so many years of silence. The Porcupine of Truth is also a glimpse into the lives of those living with AIDS during the late 1970s and early 1980s, told with a tender spirit and gentle wisdom in an attempt to explain the gay culture of the time. The characters are beautifully developed to the point that readers will wish they could find them in reality. The character’s relationships are tested, mended, and stretched, quite like they are in real life. As for the porcupine, it really does exist in the book, though only in cardboard. This book involves alternative life styles and encourages readers to be accepting of other people’s choices. Reviewer: Elizabeth Young; Ages 14 up.

Children's Literature - Elizabeth Young