Author: Jerry Sander

ISBN:   0-9766127-0-4

Publisher: The Way It Works Press

The following review was contributed by Emily Shaffer

For those of us whose high school years are a somewhat distant memory, Jerry Sander’s novel Permission Slips serves as a not-so-gentle reminder of the timeless issues, fears, and discoveries experienced by teenagers.  It also offers a realistic glimpse into the lives of today’s teenagers, in some ways tougher and more complicated than ever before.

“Glimpse” is the best way to describe Permission Slips.  There is no real central plot or character; instead the reader is dropped into and out of the lives of a wide range of characters, all somehow associated with an upstate New York high school.  There is drug-dealing Angel, for instance, who just murdered a man and is in town looking for his pregnant girlfriend.  There’s tough-talking Claire, who lives in the local group home, and Ronald, her mother’s racist and abusive boyfriend.  We meet the school’s principal Peter and social worker Alan, both preoccupied with their own personal problems.  And there’s Alison, a non-conformist “good girl” trying to make it in a not-so-good world.  These and other characters are realistically drawn, and Sander’s brutal honesty in his portrayal of characters who feel completely justified in their actions can be downright shocking.

Permission Slips is slow-paced and thought-provoking in its many stories and themes.  While many plotlines place a heavy emphasis on issues of racism and bigotry, Sanders does not draw conclusions about his characters; he simply shows us who they are.  Sanders’ own professional background as a high school counselor comes across in his understanding of the complexities of high school, both for the students and the adults who inhabit it.  If you’re looking for a gritty, unromanticized look at one of our most important and misunderstood subcultures – an average American high school – then Permission Slips is a must-read.