Too Cool

Duff Brenna is an American original, whose two previous novels have won honors and acclaim: The Book of Mamie won the prestigious Associated Writing Programs Award, and The Holy Book of the Beard was hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "engrossing and uproarious . . . nearly impossible to put down."

With Too Cool, Duff Brenna has written a tale with the feel of a classic. Set against the unforgiving landscape of blizzard-swept Colorado, Too Cool begins with the adrenaline rush of a high-speed car chase. Elbert Earl Evans, known as Triple E, sixteen years old, has busted out of reform school and taken off with his girlfriend, Jeanne Windriver, in a stolen Oldsmobile. Pursued by police, Triple E and Jeanne escape by turning off onto a backroads road, where the car eventually stalls, trapping the two youngsters miles from civilization in a deadly snow storm. In a situation of growing desperation Triple E is forced to confront the violence in his nature and the acts that have brought him to the brink of destruction--from his violent street skirmishes to the scars suffered in a reform school that was supposed to rehabilitate him, but trapped him in a struggle between two influential teachers whose own dreams of glory came ahead of his development.

Duff Brenna sensitively portrays the troubled Triple E as a boy grown too fast into manhood, struggling to control his explosive impulses, and discovering a vein of tenderness in his deep love for Jeanne. Gripping, disturbing, undeniably powerful, Too Cool is a near-flawless novel.