This book, "Plaintive Questions at Rock Bottom," is a short novel.
The time-setting of the story is July, 1968.
Richard Porndip is a sixteen-year-old boy and a resident of an unspecified, generic American city/town/location called Pinecrest Village. He is the narrator of this story, but, unbeknownst to himself, he is a de facto chronicler of a certain American era, circa 1968.
A lot of "Baby Boomers"—a "baby boomer" being defined as an American who was born between about 1946 and about 1964—now, as fiftysomethings or sixtysomethings or seventysomethings, naturally see the past, e.g., the Sixties, in a certain way, i.e., "through rose-colored glasses," but Richard Porndip is just a real kid telling a real story in real time—right now, the month of July, 1968. As a result he is, at times, unintentionally, very "politically incorrect" to our contemporary sensibilities.
Probably the most common adjective or noun ascribed to this story is the word "hilarious."
This story should appeal to adults and to teenagers, equally, because of its no-bullshit quality.
