L.I.E

by David Hollander

"Long Island, New York, 1987: Harlan Kessler - raised in Medford, a product of blue-collar Suffolk County, of housing developments and concrete strip malls - graduates from high school. He hangs out, he parties, he plays guitar for the Dayglow Crazies (the local rock-and-roll phenomenon), and he struggles diligently to lose his virginity. He doesn't think about the future much. The Long Island Expressway (L.I.E.) cleaves the landscape, permitting passage west, to the tonier climes of Nassau County and New York City, but to Harlan, this seems like an impossible journey, something beyond his...