I Never Loved Your Mind
by Paul Zindel
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Description
Records the relationship of Dewey and Yvette, two high school dropouts working in a hospital.Tags
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Member Reviews
Best part of the book: the sanctimonious hippie chick moves out to New Mexico to start a commune, and makes a living ripping off the tourists by selling them pot holders, which she passes off as "genuine Navajo" but which are actually made by an occupational therapist in Staten Island. Hahahahaha.
At 17, Dewey Daniels is fed up with his boring high school and decides to drop out, taking a part-time job at Richmond Valley Hospital. one day he catches fellow dropout Yvette Goethals stealing hospital supplies, and it's lust at first sight. But Yvette and Dewey are like night and day: she's a vegetarian and couldn't care less about a romantic commitment; he loves cheeseburgers and can't get Yvette out of his mind. By the time these two get through with each other, will true love ever be the same?
I love this book and read it countless times when I was in high school even though the only copy my school library owned had a whole chapter torn out. It is a really interesting "love" story with a zany female lead character to foil the more sensible male narrator.
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Author Information
71+ Works 9,280 Members
Paul Zindel Born on Staten Island, New York, Zindel was raised by a single mother who pursued a variety of odd and mostly unsuccessful jobs and took in terminally ill patients to supplement the family income. Due to her eccentricity and restlessness, the mother moved the family from one apartment to another, making it difficult for Zindel to form show more lasting friendships. As a consequence, the boy lived in the world of his imagination, developing interests in both science and writing. Zindel majored in chemistry at Wagner College on Staten Island, completing both bachelors and masters degrees. During this period he also took a creative-writing course offered by the playwright Edward Albee. After college he worked briefly as a technical writer for a chemical company and then discovered a more fulfilling vocation as a teacher of chemistry and physics at a Staten Island high school. It was during this period in the early 1960s that Zindel was able to develop his potential as a playwright by drawing on his own background as well as the experiences of his young students. The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds premiered at the Alley Theater in Houston in 1965, was presented in a condensed version on television the following year, and finally opened off-Broadway at the Mercer-O'Casey Theater in 1970. Because of a fire in the theater, the play was moved, with a new cast, to the New Theater on Broadway, where it ran for a total of 819 performances. In addition to being enormously popular, Gamma Rays earned in 1970 an Obie Award as the best play of the season, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award as the best American play, and the Vernon Rice Drama Desk Award for most promising playwright. In 1971 the play was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Gamma Rays is the story of an embittered, half-mad widow, Beatrice Hunsdorfer; her teenaged daughters, Ruth and Tillie; and Nanny, a decrepit old woman who boards with them. The family lives in chaos, with Beatrice dealing out petty vengeance to everyone. Nanny has been abandoned by her daughter. Ruth is wanton, untidy, and subject to seizures. Tillie, however, has become interested in science and enters her marigold experiment in the science fair; by exposing the marigold seeds to radiation, she shows that some produce normal plants, others produce mutations with beautiful double blooms, while still others die. The metaphor, of course, is that Tillie has emerged from her chaotic environment as a beautiful and whole person, a human "double bloom." Zindel's other plays include And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little (1971), The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wild(1973), Let Me Hear You Whisper (1973), and Ladies at the Alamo(1975). While these plays continue to show Zindel's skill in writing excellent roles for women, none of them have matched the critical and popular success of Gamma Rays. Since the late 1960s, Zindel has also written several novels for young adults. The Pigman (1968), which is about a lonely widower and two destructive teenagers, has sold more than 1 million copies. His other novels include My Darling, My Hamburger (1969), I Never Loved Your Mind (1970), Pardon Me, You're Stepping on My Eyeball (1976), Confessions of a Teenage Baboon (1977), and The Undertaker's Gone Bananas (1978). As in Gamma Rays, these works display not only a penchant for grotesque humor but an uncanny awareness of the problems of teenagers. Zindel's works, which also include several screenplays, explore the themes of loneliness, escapism, and eccentricity. His best works are humorous, perceptive, and warm; they present an affirmation of life emerging from desperate and grotesque circumstances. He is especially noted for his excellent women's roles, which has helped sustain him as a best-selling playwright for school and community groups. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Work Relationships
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1970
- People/Characters
- Yvette Goethals; Dewey Daniels
- Dedication
- To URSULA
- First words
- If you knew I was a seventeen-year-old handsome guy hacking out this verbose volume of literary ecstasy, you'd probably think I was one of those academic genii who run home after a titillating day at school, panting to commen... (show all)ce cello lessons.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)But I'm going to do something, and I have a strange feeling it's going to be phantasmagorically different.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Teen, Children's Books, Young Adult
- DDC/MDS
- 813.54 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999 1945-1999
- LCC
- PZ7 .Z647 — Language and Literature Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Juvenile belles lettres
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 185
- Popularity
- 177,418
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.84)
- Languages
- Danish, English, German
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 18
- ASINs
- 4
