Adultescence: a novella

The ultimate disgruntled fan learns that revenge has a way of biting back, in this hilarious and moving tale of maturity, and forgiveness, delayed until it's almost too late.
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"An addiction to a beloved story can be as exhilarating--and as debilitating--as any chemical dependency."

Nobody knows this better than Natheny Baruwal, a 26-year-old computer programmer and the ultimate disgruntled fan. When famed movie director Frank Castle releases his worse-than-horrible prequel, the aspiring screenwriter in Natheny takes over, and thus begins a convoluted revenge campaign via the Net that will ultimately bring him face-to-face with his hero/nemesis. But to truly escape the Master's influence, he will have to be bested, outdone, defeated on his own turf.

Unfortunately, Nathe is also locked in a legal battle with his mother over her half-falling-down McMansion, where he lives like a squatter, the house a hostage to the ugly divorce triggered by her endless renovations. And his mother's not the only woman in his life giving him trouble. But they have more to teach him than he's ready to be taught, and--as he may yet learn--revenge has a way of biting back.

Is he really writing that screenplay? Or is it, like the house itself, merely a façade that's
forever threatening to collapse? Find out as his story converges with those of four friends,
all groping toward their own 21st-century adulthoods, in this hilarious and moving tale
of maturity, and forgiveness, delayed until it's almost too late.

Excerpted from the forthcoming novel 'Twilight of the Adults'.
P.D. Walter lives in Toronto.

Copyright © 2016, P. D. Walter (pdwalterbooks.com)