NIPS WITH LIPS

I read and reviewed this book last summer. This week I remembered how much fun it is when I heard Drew giggling his way through it at the coffee shop.

The Secret Fruit of Peter Paddington by Brian Francis
(Harper Perennial, $12.95)

Peter Paddington is not a pervert. But he does have some peculiar habits.
The 13-year-old overweight outcast dresses in drag when he’s home alone, dancing to Olivia Newton-John hits. When he’s not fantasizing about seducing a handsome married gentleman on his paper route, he seeks spiritual counsel from the image of the Virgin Mary he finds on his bedroom wall.
Oh, and one more thing. He makes constant trips to the convenience store to buy tape to cover the red, puffy nipples that spring from his puberty-stricken body. His nipples talk to him, you see, and he wants them to shut up.
“‘Maybe if you were normal , we’d be normal , too,’” they say.
This may sound like a ridiculous, gimmicky premise, but Canadian author Brian Francis makes it work in this hilarious and poignant novel, set in the 1980s. The book was simply called Fruit when it was published last year in Canada. For its south of the border release, the U.S. publisher lengthened the title and Americanized some cultural references (in this version, for instance, Peter says the “Pledge of Allegiance” at school instead of singing “O Canada!”).
Like Judy Blume’s Then Again, Maybe I Won’t or Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Secret Fruit documents the embarrassments and the frustrations of teen life with whimsy, humor and wisdom. And like a Blame novel, it’s fast and fun without ever compromising its street smarts. Adult readers may feel themselves sucked right back to middle school days, when it felt like certain death to stand apart from the crowd – even if that only meant wearing the wrong style of sneakers to gym class.
While he’s perfecting his masturbatory techniques with a shower nozzle, Peter drums up sexual fantasies about male schoolteachers, neighbors and, every now and then, a kid his own age. On a less saucy note, he also pictures himself befriending the luminescent girl who plays Maria in a local high school production of The Sound of Music.
For the most part, Francis smoothly navigates back and forth between the realms of reality and fantasy. But some of the transitions are choppy, resulting in rough, disorienting landings to otherwise smooth flights of fancy.