The Best of Youth: A Novel

By Michael Dahlie

Fiction : Literary

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date: January 2013

ISBN: 9780393089189

Digital Book format: ePub (Adobe DRM)

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After inheriting fifteen million dollars, a twenty-four-year-old moves to Brooklyn to pursue his entirely delusional vision of contemporary youth culture.

Henry Lang is a smart but unassuming young man with a degree from Harvard and limited social skills. After his parents are killed in a freak sailing accident, leaving him a substantial inheritance, he moves to Brooklyn to see if he can make it in publishing, perhaps fall in love, and attend the sorts of parties and events that he imagines twenty-somethings in Brooklyn most likely frequent. Unfortunately, Henry is somewhat of a target for other, more savvy Brooklynites. He finds himself in a string of increasingly troubling situations and demoralizing romantic adventures. Things finally fall apart for him in catastrophic ways when he agrees to ghost-write a young adult novel for a charismatic but drug-addicted and sometimes-violent actor. Will Henry lose everything he has to save his integrity? By turns hilarious and tragic, The Best of Youth is a brilliant modern-day comedy of manners.