J. T. Dutton

Book Title: Freaked

Publication Date: March 17, 2009

Publisher: HarperTeen

ISBN: 978-0-06-1379-3

Author Links:

Description of Book:

Fifteen year old Scotty Douglas is a boy with problems. His mother is a famous sex self-help therapist. He owes money to his drug dealing boarding school roommate. He yearns to add one more bootleg tape to his collection, but he doesn't have a ticket to the show.
And then, somehow . . . fate provides.
The joyous tale of a teen Dead Head.

About the Author:

J. T. Dutton honors and respects the musical legacy of the Grateful Dead, but considers her story about them accidental. She was drafting a project for a creative writing class at Columbia University, hurrying to finish it on the Metro North train when six prep-school students boarded in Darien, all of them dressed in tie-dye and smiling the smiles of the initiated, all of them on their way to see the Jerry Garcia Band at Madison Square Garden. Whatever great prose Dutton had planned evaporated and was replaced with Freaked.

Excerpt:

My first close encounter with Saint Jerry was the 1991 Saratoga show. Todd dragged me along on one of his mystery outings. I wore a polo shirt . . . . A Goofus maneuver, I admit, but it didn’t keep me from enjoying the scene the way it would have a square like Gallant. The band played “Uncle John’s Band” right into “Man Smart, Women Smarter,” and then they did this . . . rendition of “Bertha.” During the second set some dude from the freak brigade jumped off the second tier, arms out, tie-dye spread. He fluttered like a . . . robin off to meet Jesus, landed on the crowd, curled into a ball, and ran away. Bobby sang “I need a Miracle” and everybody sang right along with him, dancing like snakes just loose from a box. Todd made me a bootleg tape of the Saratoga show and sold me a copy for nine dollars and seventy-five cents. When I slip into the deck, I can hear surge from the faithful as the guy falls. Listening to the Saratoga tape is like being transformed all over again without the smell of incense and patchouli, without forty thousand people leaning over me and messing with microcosmic implosion of my brain cells.

Since that day in Saratoga, I have lived my life according to all the rules of Jerryism. I have shared my women (if my mother counts) and I have shared my wine (sometimes out the car window or all over my shirt and shoes). I have kept on trucking and smiled, smiled, smiled.

Reviews