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THE NOVEMBER CRIMINALS

Sam Munson

A darkly funny, pot-infused novel of teenage maladjustment in the tradition of Beautiful Children from a compelling new voice in American fiction.

For a high school senior, Addison Schacht has a lot of preoccupations. Like getting into college. Selling drugs to his classmates. His complicated relationship with his best friend (NOT his girlfriend) Digger. And he's just added another to the list: the murder of his classmate Kevin Broadus, and his own absurd, obsessive plan to investigate the death. When presented with an essay question on his application to the University of Chicago—What are your best and worst qualities?—Addison finds himself provoked into giving his final, unapologetic say about all of the above and more. Addison Schacht finds good company among American literature's cadre of unsettled, restless youth, from Huck Finn to Holden Caulfield. The November Criminals takes on the terrain of the classic adolescent truth-telling novel and—with nerve and erudition—carves out its own unique territory. Sam Munson’s writing has appeared in n+1, Tablet, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The National, The Daily Beast, Commentary, The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Observer, The Utopian, and numerous other publications. His next novel, The War Against the Assholes, will be published in June by Simon & Schuster’s Saga Press. He graduated from the University of Chicago and currently lives in New York City.

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Book Published 2015-10-01 by Saga Press / Simon & Schuster

Comments

Munson is a writer with something to say; and if saying it slows the pace, well, given the brash voice of this audacious new writer, I wonder if he’d have it any other way.

A clever debut starring a stoner, Gen Y Holden-like teen. Sam Munson’s debut novel, narrated by Jewish stoner teen misanthrope Addison Schacht, nails the adolescent voice perfectly while leading us through his stumbling attempt to solve a mystery. Addison’s witty, wandering asides reference everything from the Aeneid to Latin syntax to his favorite movies, as he finds himself right in the middle of the mystery he’s been trying to solve.

Munson’s funny, stoner-friendly debut follows high school senior Addison Schacht as he stumbles through the Washington, D.C., teenage underworld to investigate a classmate’s unsolved murder. Schacht—a small-time pot dealer, consummate anti-social, and Jewish collector of Holocaust jokes—makes for a poor but entertaining detective, and when he places a stoned phone call to his prime suspect, Addison and his friends become caught up in the mystery he set out to solve. As Addison’s sleuthing begins to unravel and his life crumbles along with it, his ramblings offer an interesting counter to, and often context for, his misguided attempt to discover the truth . . . Munson nails the voice.

In response to a college-application question, high-school senior Addison produces this scathing mea culpa, which takes the form of a rambling, first-person rant . . . His outer blankness of character (“I have no personality to speak of,” he insists) conceals a hyper-intelligence that recklessly leads to a (rather hilarious) mid-novel assault on the apparent killer. The book has every earmark of a debut: bratty, precocious, tangential, and in love with its own voice, yet Munson ably reminds us why such qualities are irresistible in the first place.

Sony Pictures Worldwide just bought the film distribution rights at Sundance, and production of the film begins in March with an anticipated spring 2016 release. The film is to star Chloe Grace Moretz and The Fault In Our Stars‘ Ansel Elgort. (http://deadline.com/2015/01/november-criminals-sony-pictures-worldwide-acquisitions-chloe-moretz-ansel-elgort-1201362800/). Read more...

Munson has written one of the funniest, most heartfelt novels in recent memory—a book every bit as worthy of Mark Twain and J.D. Salinger—about the goodwill and decency that sometimes shrouds itself in adolescent vulgarity and swagger.

Has the inventive, expansive flare of Michael Chabon’s best writing and the highbrow-crime intrigue of a Donna Tartt book.

Debut novelist Munson combines a classic sense of adolescent alienation and a keen comedic voice to depict a bleakly funny teenage wasteland in the wilds of the District of Columbia . . . Echoes of James Fuerst’s Huge (2009) and the 2005 film Brick abound, but deft comic timing and a caustic, ambitious protagonist make this a perfectly valid entry in the teen noir subgenre.

AST/Russia, Sperling/Italy, Nasza Ksiegarnia/Poland, Sharp Point Press/Taiwan, Oceano/Latin America & Spain

He shares the profane slanginess and the petulant self-righteousness of Salinger’s famous malcontent.