How I Paid for College
A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater
By Marc Acito
(Broadway, Hardcover, 9780767918411, 288pp.)
Publication Date: September 7, 2004
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Paperback, Compact Disc
Categories: General
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A deliciously funny romp of a novel about one overly theatrical and sexually confused New Jersey teenager’s larcenous quest for his acting school tuition
It’s 1983 in Wallingford, New Jersey, a sleepy bedroom community outside of Manhattan. Seventeen-year-old Edward Zanni, a feckless Ferris Bueller–type, is Peter Panning his way through a carefree summer of magic and mischief. The fun comes to a halt, however, when Edward’s father remarries and refuses to pay for Edward to study acting at Juilliard.
Edward’s truly in a bind. He’s ineligible for scholarships because his father earns too much. He’s unable to contact his mother because she’s somewhere in Peru trying to commune with Incan spirits. And, as a sure sign he’s destined for a life in the arts, Edward’s incapable of holding down a job. So he turns to his loyal (but immoral) misfit friends to help him steal the tuition money from his father, all the while practicing for his high school performance of Grease. Disguising themselves as nuns and priests, they merrily scheme their way through embezzlement, money laundering, identity theft, forgery, and blackmail. But, along the way, Edward also learns the value of friendship, hard work, and how you’re not really a man until you can beat up your father—metaphorically, that is.
How I Paid for College is a farcical coming-of-age story that combines the first-person tone of David Sedaris with the byzantine plot twists of Armistead Maupin. It is a novel for anyone who has ever had a dream or a scheme, and it marks the introduction to an original and audacious talent.
Hailed as the "gay Dave Barry," Marc Acito is a syndicated humorist, whose column, "The Gospel According to Marc," appears in nineteen newspapers, including the Chicago Free Press and Outword-Los Angeles. After being kicked out of one of the finest drama schools in the country, he went on to sing roles with major opera companies, including Seattle Opera. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
His website is www.MarcAcito.com
“Funny, entertaining, and ultimately endearing.”
—Details
“A charming first novel...Wicked fun.”
—Out Magazine
”A seriously adult teen novel...Wildly camp and achingly funny.”
—BBC
“An exuberant caper with good period detail.”
—Independent, England
“Difficult to put down...Very funny.”
—London Financial Times
“High School as it Should Have Been.”
—Kirkus (Starred Review)
“HOW I PAID FOR COLLEGE is that most rare of pleasures: intelligent light reading.”
—Book Marks
“Sheer brilliance. Marc Acito's brilliant debut novel is a must read...with cutting wit, vicious one-liners and some of the best bitching I have read in a long time...A brilliant laugh-out-loud novel.”
—City Magazine, England
“Marc Acito’s rollicking first novel is, by turns, sweet, sexy, and outrageous. Powered by the author’s devious imagination, the story shows us a handful of teenagers driven to larceny, embezzlement, and impersonation—all in the name of higher education. Beneath the story’s beguiling shtick, though, is a more serious issue—the complications inherent in the difficult business of becoming ourselves. A great graduation gift.”
—Jennifer Finney Boylan, author of She’s Not There
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