The Smut Book

Tito Perdue's The Smut Book is a wry novel about a pre-teen boy's awakening interest in the opposite sex, set in 1950 in a small Alabama town. It is a world in which healthy youngsters grow up fast, barely contained by close families, hovering teachers, and chaperoned dances. But in today's culture, it seems as decorous as a Jane Austen novel.