Publisher's Synopsis
"This was me, age eleven or twelve, the suburbs where I'm from, and I can remember something approaching hysteria, walking around the now-pink carpeted basement of the house I'd grown up in. I was in middle school-too young, maybe, a party hosted by a sophomore named Alicia, whose family had moved into the house and was of course, that night, away for the weekend. I can tell you it was like an elaborate prank, played to perfection by these kids, laughing and falling over each other on couches, drinking beer, ignoring me completely as I went from room to room, and it was in that instance, right then, I made the leap to develop a sense of nostalgia. Fucking white people. And not just the carpet. The track lighting. The vertical blinds, the blond-wood paneling. A phone I saw shaped like a football. The shag carpet cover on the toilet seat, also pink. I remembered riding rings around that basement all night on my big wheel when I was six. "