Last Class

What do a gay teenager whose first name is Last, a future sorority queen who calls her horse Pierce Chad Stonington III, a virgin-until-marriage pledge group, a pirate radio station, a wacko fundamentalist Christian terrorist organization, and the National Guard have in common? The answer is: A fun and zany look at lust and love, small town life, authority run amok, and teenage rebellion.

Last Class is a comedic novel about a small town in the throes of a modern-day sexual revolution. In this madcap hormonal romp, a shy high school student, Last Mundy, launches a multimedia protest against narrow-minded teachers, his tranquilized monkey classmates, and a totalitarian high school principal. Heidi Malone, a local herbal supplements seller, joins the protest to raise awareness of her impending court trial—all on account of a trumped-up obscenity charge leveled at her car’s hood ornament. The protest snowballs into a full-fledged rebellion that spreads throughout the town and captures the attention of the nation’s media, rocketing the town’s tiny population from obscurity into the bizarre glare of unwanted stardom.

While the protest wreaks havoc against false morality and double-dealing politicians, three romances blossom amid the chaos. Treasure Stephens, a suffer-no-fools, middle-aged gladiator, wonders if writing her fictionalized autobiography has forever consigned her to living alone with the past. Suresh Chatterjee, a high-strung teenager, begins to take anarchy lessons from Treasure, all in the hope of protecting his would-be love, Last, from the grips of a marauding high school chimp. And, thirty-seven years earlier, a love affair ahead of its time lives through the most momentous events of the autumn of 1971—the debut of The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, the launch of ChapStick’s flavoured lip balms, and Soul Train storming the airwaves of the nation.