Perv--a Love Story cover

Perv--a Love Story

by Jerry Stahl

"Set in 1970 - in the last dark days of hippiedom - Perv - A Love Story is the saga of Bobby Stark, a sixteen-year-old batch of angst and hormones struggling to stay sane in a world gone Day-Glo."--BOOK JACKET. "As the novel opens, Bobby loses his virginity in a drug-addled tryst with a one-armed barber's daughter. His best friend rats him out, and Bobby gets kicked out of school and sent home to live with his mom, a sozzled electroshock aficionado who can't get over the insult of Bobby's father's suicide-by-streetcar. After myriad depraved encounters with his mother's "dates," including a lip-licking scoutmaster and terminally drunk public defender, Bobby flees the horrors of condo-land in search of the girl of his dreams, a lapsed Hare Krishna-ette named Michelle over whom he's obsessed since kindergarten. Young Michelle joined the cult to get away from her groping stepdaddy, only to find more bad karma with a sexed up swami."--BOOK JACKET. "In the spirit of the times, the couple decides to hitchhike to San Francisco. Before they make mile one, they're picked up by a pair of Bad Hippies - Meat and Varnish - smacked-out spiritual cousins to Charles Manson. From here the trip gets harrowing, as the duo narrowly escape rape and torture, vanquish their assailants, and stagger from Meat's cranked-up Continental forever transformed."--BOOK JACKET.

More by Jerry Stahl

Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?