He feels disabled by his own alienation from his middle-class suburban community. He'd rather listen to beloved mope-rock bands, The Smiths, The Cure, and Joy Division (from whom he quotes lyrics at length) than go to school or, God forbid, talk to anyone. He's buried in his own head, while this girl's disability, he imagines, has liberated her: “She seemed really to face the world, and her gaze came to me as if by catapult.”
Taylor Antrim explores why these short works might be perfect for our time and suggests a few recent ones that do things the novel can only dream about.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-04/the-novella-is-making-a-comeback/?cid=topic:mainpromo1
Sounds interesting, both the subject matter and the story.
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