In Tom Perrotta‘s short story “Backrub” (from the book, Nine Inches), the teenaged Donald stands up to a middle-aged, homosexual cop who wants to give Donald a backrub. Good. All the same, the young dude is proving to be a moral disappointment—to his parents and, well, even the world. He backs away from a commitment to travel to Uganda and help orphans there. Eventually he gets into big trouble with the police.

Donald senses that he can afford to be an “asshole” or a rebel of sorts. This is a “backrub” he can live with. He’s wrong, though. This seems to be a coming of age story (in an oh-so-liberal world)—a rich and assuredly not-boring one. The “Steinbeck of suburbia,” as Perrotta has been called, has done it again.