"His name was Ralph. The penis, that is. The young man that Ralph was attached to was named Michael, not that I or anyone else would remember that decades later. Poor Michael! He seemed nice. Attentive and loving, in a slightly anodyne kind of way. But Ralph? Ralph had a mind of his own. A personality. Ralph was hard to forget."
"She had a pert nose, tweezed eyebrows, and long, feathered hair. Very 1970s. "A moving story of the end of innocence," read the book's description. Readers were meant to understand that this young woman was the individual whose story was moving, and whose innocence had ended. Inside, we learned that her name is Katherine Danziger. She is a high-school student, and also a virgin."
The novel Forever... turns 50 this October. A TV series adapted from it premiered on Netflix and has been renewed for a second season. The narrative centers on Katherine Danziger, a high-school senior and virgin who meets Michael and embarks on a sexual relationship. The book's cover depicts a gold locket and a pensive young woman, signaling themes of lost innocence. The title's ellipsis implies ambiguity about permanence, yet the depicted relationship is not eternal. The anthropomorphized penis named Ralph became an especially vivid, unforgettable detail for many readers.
Read at The Atlantic
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]