Now in paperback, The Year of the Zinc Penny is a contemporary classic. Trygve Soren Napoli is a ten-year-old just beginning to realize that he is alone in the world. Certain inescapable quirks tip him off: He cannot stop himself from repeating aloud each of his sentences, even after his stepfather tapes his mouth shut. Strange black hairs grow from the back of his hand. He has a weird name, unlike the other kids in Los Angeles, his new home. Even the cousin he looks up to calls him crazy. He doesn’t have a father, but then the country is in the middle of the biggest war ever, and a lot of kids are missing dads. His uncle drinks, and Trygve sees him hit Aunt Ginger, but then it was his uncle who gave him the roll of zinc pennies—and Uncle Gerald is the one who somehow manages to lay hand on the valuable copper wire needed to build an antenna for Trygve’s shortwave radio, the boy’s one sure link to the external world.
The Year of the Zinc Penny is a masterful rendering of a young consciousness. From his war-hero daydreams, to his obsession with Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, to his first encounters with sex and violence, to his disgust and fear at the depravity of the hodgepodge adults in his life,Trygve’s search for meaning is one of contemporary literature’s most compelling.