The title pretty well describes this book, a retrospective of the teenage years of one Cedar Rivres, his falling in love with the curious Kat, there meeting twenty years later, in an upstate New York hotel, because Kat has written a story/memoir of those couple of years and wants Cedar to sign off on it. Cedar first attracts Kat's attention when, during biology class, he brings in his own sperm for viewing under the microscope. This begins their relationship, fast and hard and sexual, until they find out that Kat is pregnant. This begins the conflict, between the two, the misconception, as Cedar things the step father to be did it, and Kat's decision to end their relationship. During all of this, Cedar's parents divorce, we learn the story of Kat's mother's life, her marriage, to Kat's father, Jerry, a septic tank cleaner, and the relative security and boredom of George, her husband to be. As we move towards this marriage, between George, who Cedar thinks impregnated Kat, and Kat's mother, the righteous,dangerous misconception grows, as Cedar tells Kat's father Jerry, who arrives at the wedding reception and shoots both George and himself. The novel ends with the two forty year olds saying goodby, without hooking up, not sure of what happened twenty years ago, but perhaps much wiser now that they have thought back over the events that led to these two terrible deaths, the end of their relationship, the wrong that we often do to those we love for reasons with ultimately cannot fathom until it's too late. An interesting book, easy enough to read, as I wanted to come back to it, and it has some of the agonies of youth, emotional, physcial, and sexual. It certainly makes us aware of the truth of unintended consequences, a result of jealousy, unrequited love, and poor judgment.
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