Slouching Towards Kalamazoo

Anthony Thrasher is a fifteen-year-old underachiever who simply cannot grasp the mundane realities of the eighth grade. While under the tutelage of his free-spirited teacher Miss Maggie Doubloon (she has the audacity to assign The Scarlet Letter to her class), Tony suddenly finds himself a father. Miss Doubloon leaves town wearing a large "A+" emblazoned on her T-shirt and returns to her hometown of Kalamazoo. Following Maggie and their illegitimate son, Ahab, Tony meets Bubbles Breedlove—Ahab's buxom, virginal nursemaid—and falls madly in love with her.

The plot thickens as Peter De Vries throws in one crotchety grandfather, a dog named Chuck, and a born-again-atheist-turned-radio-announcer in this hilariously sidesplitting novel about love, religion, social mores, and growing up.