Skateboy (PB) (2015)

"A child's toy consumed my life.

"The kid went up this kicker--which, if you are not a skateboarder, is an incline or decline you go up or down--launched in the air (the board staying under him), and landed on top of a four-foot tall railing just ahead of the kicker, glided along it, then finally dropped off and landed down on the cement. Perfectly.

"It was love at first sight.

"Lo and behold, I became a skater. . . ."

Carl Klitz is an amateur local skateboarder in South Florida. Since he was nine years old, he's struggled to find a way to "make it" in the harsh world of the skate industry. When he discovers friends that could possibly get him there, he finds himself in an even harsher world: the taxing festivities of getting kicked out of spot after spot, the challenging, undertaking superiorness of other skateboarders seeking the same purpose of exposure, and the tedious, agonizingly painful attempts of landing tricks for hours on end. Yet upon arrival of the sizable premier of his final skate video, Carl has the epiphany he's been looking for--is the skate world really what it appears to be, or is all of this a journey to find his sense of self and friendships?

A surprising story of youth, growing-up, and learning life's trials, Skateboy is a fiendishly insightful, eye-opening novel from one of the most provoactive of urban writers.