Spoiler alert…In this
book Skippy dies on page 5. Skippy dies while engaged in a doughnut eating
contest with his friend Ruprecht. The rest of this funny book is devoted to
informing the reader how he came to this end.
Skippy is a fourteen
year old student at a boys’ boarding school in Ireland. He is surrounded by boys his own age,
adolescents with the usual adolescent problems and personalities. They inflict
one another with cruel nicknames. (Skippy, whose given name is Daniel, is so
called because of his resemblance to a kangaroo on a television show.) They
play cruel pranks and threaten each other with violence. They regale each other
with lies, stories laced with sexual bravado and brave defiance of authority.
There are also, of course, teachers. Many are graduates of this same school.
They inflict one another with cruel nicknames, such as Howard the Coward. They
play cruel pranks and threaten each other with violence. They regale each other
with lies, stories laced with sexual bravado and brave defiance of authority.
Some are well-meaning but incompetent. Some are consumed with ambition and
incompetent. Parents are self-absorbed and indifferent except when their
child’s success might reflect back on them. Adolescent girls have their own
school and their own forms of cruelty which they inflict on boys, parents and
teachers. Drugs are rampant on both campuses.
Skippy falls in love with a beautiful girl from
the nearby all-girls’ school. At first
he can only worship her from afar as he watches her play Frisbee. He finally
meets her and learns her name (Lori) at the ill-fated Halloween Hop mixer held
at his school. The beautiful Lori allows him to think she is his girlfriend,
but she is mercurial and manipulative and unworthy of the sweet-natured Skippy.
Meanwhile history teacher, Howard Fallon, is just as infatuated with Miss
McIntyre, the new substitute teacher, as Skippy is with Lori, and his actions
are just as immature as Skippy’s (or more so.)
After Skippy becomes
infatuated with Lori, his behavior changes. He becomes forgetful. He daydreams in class and outside of class.
He gets physically ill. He, against his father’s and coach’s wishes, quits the
swim team. The teachers notice his uncharacteristic behavior but none step up
to properly investigate his problem. Skippy asks to come home for a visit but
his father refuses. In the end, the indifference of the adults charged with
protecting Skippy is far crueler than any nickname or violence or broken heart
a fellow teen could inflict on him.
Skippy Dies is a bittersweet book, a
dark comedy with, despite its title and theme, a hopeful end.
