Long Peterson - The main character, an overburdened sixteen year old boy who feels he has lost the sense of who and where he is within his life.
Gil Bell - Long's best friend and bass player in his band whose oddball humour and optimism have helped him through a multitude of divorces and separations.
Bethel Ashwood - Long's other best friend, and recently the object of his love. Her parents are still very much hippies, and she is fiercely independent and sometimes remote.
Morgan Truman - Gil's cousin who is staying with him for the summer, and drummer in the band. Extremely good looking but dangerously reckless and stupid.
Jacob Peterson - Long's older brother who is at all times unperturbed and guileless, but somewhat scatterbrained.
Rhiannon Bow - A close friend of Long's. Morgan's girlfriend. A bandwagon jumper on the `alternative' gravy train.
Ashley Ashwood - Bethel's brother. A modern day hippy and dreamer. He ran away at New Year and hasn't been seen since.
Juliet Peterson - Long's older sister. Increasingly divorced from Long's lifestyle.
Dana Dunkirk - Juliet's boyfriend who is living with Long's family.
A SYNOPSIS
Monday, August 22nd 1994 (Chapters 1-3)
Long describes his world and place in it, of which he is presently unsure of. He is undergoing a crisis - realising that his sixteenth year is going to be one of the ones he'll look back on as the best in his life, but also that there's frighteningly little of it left. He discusses, amongst other things, the origins of his odd name, his infatuation with Bethel, and her brother Ashley's running away. He talks about his hometown, Woodstock New York State and how it, like all his favourite music, has been turned into a cheap imitation of itself to satisfy the whims of an increasingly brainless public for Woodstock '94. His own grassroots way of countering this is by mounting his own concert annd making a pirate broadcast called K - RUPTION at the original site with his band Butterfingers . K-RUPTION goes surprisingly well. The band returns jubilant to their favourite hang out, the eatery (where Long's older brother Jacob and Morgan both work), and Long discusses his feelings about the year with Gil . Later that night Long's family attends a Woodstock Reunion night . Long is incredulous about the fact that for a brief moment some of them actually seem like teenagers again. He swears he will never sell out and `wear a tie' like some of the hippy - come - yuppies there have. The night is only blemished by a brief but unhappy scene between Bethel's parents and their recreational drug use which leaves Long to realise there is something large problems in her family.
Tusesday 23rd August 1994 (Chapters 4-6)
Long awakes full of summer optimism and picks Bethel up for an eatery - hosted K - RUPTION afterparty. All goes well until mention of Ashley, where she becomes morose and taciturn . The party rapidly moves to the Peterson household thanks to Jacob's misplaced generosity. The band prepare themselves for a show that afternoon at the local community centre. Gil attempts to gain his parents' approval by trying to dye his hair black, claiming that the root of his parents dislike for him is the fact that they didn't believe it possible that they could produce a red - headed offspring and accused each other (inaccurately) of an affair. However, everything goes wrong and it comes out blue. Long bemoans the way cliches follow his friend wherever he goes. They rush to correct this and eventually the show goes relatively well, although Gil's parents never do turn up. A member of a local band invites Long and Butterfingers to a band night in Saugerties called `Woodschlock '94'.
In the evening, Long and Bethel go night fishing in the local lake - their favourite pastime. They end up swimming, bonding, and dicussing Bethel's seventeenth birthday which is two days away. The absolute perfection of the night is broken by the fact that Long is due to sleep over at Gil's house and Bethel to attend her birthday party.
Wednesday 24th August 1994 (Chapters 7-9)
The sudden onset of rain means that Long is forced into spending a boring day at home, his resources limited. He passes the day jamming alone in his bedroom and taking messages for his horticulturist father who is engrossed in extracting the DNA from a rare American wildflower. Bethel comes over to watch a little vintage TV (another of their favourite pastimes) and manages to totally overlook his advances, leaving in one of her incresingly frequent distant moods. Long calls up Gil, who invites him over to have a band rehearsal . Long reminisces about when Ashley used to be in the band. The rehearsal goes nowhere fast and Morgan suggests they go to a party he heard about in the neighbourhood. Long's boredom gets the better of him and he agrees to go. The party turns into a complete fiasco during which Long unwillingly gets drunk and makes a fool of himself. On the way home, he realises he was the only one at the whole party who didn't `score'.
What happens next ? Well - the danger of such things as chapter guides is that, like the good ol' Cliff Notes you refered to instead of reading `Pride and Prejudice' et al at school, they can become a vicarious substitution for the experience of the book itself. If you want to find out what happens next, e-mail me to receive the whole book (or portions thereof). Otherwise, have a taste of the novel by proceeding on to the Sample Chapter.
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