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High School Romance
In his debut collection, Marston Hefner brings a unique voice and playful style to meditations on self-acceptance, the folly of youth, and how love can lead to actualization and destruction. Through moments of family intimacy, work presentations, vacations, doomed relationships, or businessmen chasing the ephemeral, Hefner shows we are lovable and acceptable despite the shame we accumulate through the years. Sometimes it’s only through stories that we can make sense of who we are and where we are going.
75 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 30, 2022
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2093 people want to read
About the author
Marston Hefner
1 book21 followersMarston Hefner continues the legacy Hugh Hefner left him, exploring sexual taboos, finding radical self-love in humanity’s darkest unconscious desires. He is the editor and founder of Young Magazine, a professional backgammon player, and has published work in New York Tyrant. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he enjoys staying in, playing videogames, and reading.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
August 9, 2022
A whisper of a good time.
Barely over before it started, High School Romance is best enjoyed slowly. One story at a time. Marston Hefner explores themes like love, desire, loneliness, but also deviance and alienation in very short stories where all these feelings are integrated to the same narrative. Often to the same character. High School Romance is a beautiful, fleeting exploration of how complex and imperfect human being can be. It very much felt like being trapped in Rivers Cuomo's head at times.
Barely over before it started, High School Romance is best enjoyed slowly. One story at a time. Marston Hefner explores themes like love, desire, loneliness, but also deviance and alienation in very short stories where all these feelings are integrated to the same narrative. Often to the same character. High School Romance is a beautiful, fleeting exploration of how complex and imperfect human being can be. It very much felt like being trapped in Rivers Cuomo's head at times.
December 24, 2022
Full disclosure: I was sent an ARC by the press and was also asked, by the author, to provide a[n honest] review of the text. That is exactly what I plan to do. I am only including this mention since I would prefer to continue to write and present reviews that remain completely transparent, as I (for whatever reason) seem to take great pride in how I choose to talk about the books I read. To continue, I also have to say that I have had several conversations with Marston over the years (I guess it has been that long now, wow) and he has acknowledged that as writers, we are both very different—stylistically and thematically. At the same time, something I will always appreciate from an artist is the ability and desire to not only invite but encourage criticism as well as conversation. As far as I can tell, Marston is open to both! He even told me, “I’d rather have honest reviews than fluff.” I cannot ask for anything more. And while, again, it is true that we are very different in how each of us creates, I cannot help but feel compelled to offer my honest thoughts, regarding Marston’s debut.
Right off the bat, I sort of have trouble making sense of short story collections, mainly because I don’t usually read them. All of this is on me, absolutely. At the same time, I am also always constantly looking for the one unifying thing (or sometimes, things) that tie(s) everything together, and I do this with literally everything (but mostly literature, music and film). I would say that I am not very good at discussing collections, since I haven’t really developed a language for them. I understand they are a series of shorts put into a sequence but what I am getting at is the simple fact that I do not have the muscle memory. Like if I have to talk about a novel or 90-minute film, no problem… I sort of know what to look for and how to talk about what I want to talk about. Having said that, I am not afraid to try. My only hope is that my words somehow adequately convey, part or all, of what I truly thought and felt, as I read High School Romance.
Immediately, just from reading the title, I thought, “Okay, this is going to be about adolescence and growing up and reflecting on the past.” I was right, sort of. But also, not really. I’m probably going to be the only person who thinks this, but a lot of the stories in this collection reminded me of Bizarro lit. A lot of what’s in here seems to capture the banality of everyday life, albeit with a recurring tinge of weirdness (and this is the element that reminds me of Bizarro lit). Example, the story titled, "The Moon is a Tapestry, A Nightmare", opens with, “the moon is a beautiful place,” and in the following paragraph it jumps to “so you fuck elon on the moon.” Obviously, there is an element of the fantastical at play, since you cannot have sex with someone on the moon without some sort of oxygenated apparatus and even if you are wearing a “space suit” (we’ll call it), I cannot imagine it is very easy to have sex in this manner. My point is—do you see the sort of bizarre thoughts that immediately spring to mind? And this continues.
There’s the story, “My Special Creature” that has this moment in it: “When my boss looked me in the eyes, I was thinking about fucking him with a strap on. Like a small one because I care about him.” The surreal element here is imagining a situation like this actually taking place in meatspace, especially given the hierarchy at play (a boss and his/her subordinate). But then, there’s the injection of humour immediately after. A show of affection. Let’s look at one more example (of how I am reminded of Bizarro lit).
The story, “You and Me and Like, Where Do We Go, After All This Time?” opens like this: “I fucked my best most prestigious dog in the world today. Fucking my best dog in the world felt so good. I was at my best when I fucked my dog. No one could hold a candle to my dog when we fucked.” And the idea of this passage is how saying certain things now might seem or sound weird, but then fast-forward, say “500 years from now… in 500 years bestiality will be normal.” So you have a lot of moments that grab your attention (and whether or not it clicks with you is a matter of personal taste) but for the most part, as you continue on with the story, the !!! moment is eventually explained and folded in to the story in a way that begins to make sense (at least to the characters) and the mystique is unraveled.
While some of the strangeness does overlap with a few of the other stories, I would be completely avoiding a whole other aspect of the text if I didn’t mention stories like the titular, "High School Romance", "SATS" and "A Family History". These appear to be more grounded in reality. Almost like self-reflections from the author (and this is the part where I begin to ask, “How much of these characters are actually Marston?”).
One of the most magical aspects of literature, to me, is the potential for interpretation. Any and all questions I ask—no matter how silly or serious—none of them need to be answered or even addressed because, at the end of the day, all of it is a form of art. It is one person’s expression of multiple ideas. Marston brings up several topics, and in both abstract and totally not-abstract ways, engages in conversation. There’s even recurring motifs, like: the idea of the father figure, religion, personal accomplishments (as well as failures), (a lot about) family, (loss and confusion about) identity, the future and naturally, love. Unfortunately, I am not smart enough to deep-dive into any of these topics.
Going back to something I said in the beginning, something else that might explain why I have such a hard time with collections—I feel like I have to hit the reset button, every single time I reach the end (of one of these stories). And this is fine. It’s just not my preferred style of engagement. Although I will say this: I think what’s most neat about this style of story-telling… you get to see several different sides of the same person-as-writer. And when I think back to my undergrad years, anytime we were assigned short story collections, most of us would walk away simply ranking the stories in order of favourite to least-favourite. I never liked that. I always thought it detracted from the purpose of the work. And I think this is around the same time I began to realise the short story format just wasn’t for me. My point is that I think it is actually much harder (in some aspects) to put together a collection, especially one that stays with you. Anyone who is able to begin something and then complete it—see it through all the way to the end—will always have my respect. High School Romance is a project full of effort and personal dedication, that's a fact.
I want to end by discussing the final story, titled: "A Family History". In my opinion, this is the least-abstract of the bunch. Also, pretty much, the most hard-hitting exploration of what I assume is real-life (NB: this is not to say the other stories do not also talk about real life). Marston navigates through memories of his father and mother (again, a recurring theme here) in a manner that seems less like it is trying to say anything grandiose but… it appears to function more like a sort of necessary healing. What this means is, for stories like this, there isn’t very much to unpack (from a literary standpoint). What it does, instead, (and I am talking, specific to this story) is highlight the disconnect between being a son, a sibling, a mother, a father, a husband, a wife... a human.
"A Family History" ostensibly, is a giant framework of heavy questions, presented in a manner that is extremely matter-of-fact. And for a book (that I have described as being) full of abstractness, it ends with something that is 100% not-so-abstract. Though certain collections are meant to function independent of each other internally (as most stories were probably written over several years, for various publications, and maybe even, different reasons), I can’t help but feel that with High School Romance, though we are led to believe that this is a series of (possibly?) unconnected vignettes—to me, all of it reads like one giant story. A sort of culmination that both interrogates but also provides answers. You are reading about a person who, in real-time, is discovering who they are, while at the very end, also realizes, “oh—none of this is over yet.” And I think that's the unifying theme, here. That's what makes it powerful. That's what makes you go back to the first page, to read it all over again, with a renewed understanding of what perhaps(?)/maybe is the true signifier behind the whole of High School Romance. Then again... I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about. But I do know one thing: I think... what I would like to see next from Marston is a novel, or at the very least, something more longform. Yeah, that's it. I think that’s right.
Right off the bat, I sort of have trouble making sense of short story collections, mainly because I don’t usually read them. All of this is on me, absolutely. At the same time, I am also always constantly looking for the one unifying thing (or sometimes, things) that tie(s) everything together, and I do this with literally everything (but mostly literature, music and film). I would say that I am not very good at discussing collections, since I haven’t really developed a language for them. I understand they are a series of shorts put into a sequence but what I am getting at is the simple fact that I do not have the muscle memory. Like if I have to talk about a novel or 90-minute film, no problem… I sort of know what to look for and how to talk about what I want to talk about. Having said that, I am not afraid to try. My only hope is that my words somehow adequately convey, part or all, of what I truly thought and felt, as I read High School Romance.
Immediately, just from reading the title, I thought, “Okay, this is going to be about adolescence and growing up and reflecting on the past.” I was right, sort of. But also, not really. I’m probably going to be the only person who thinks this, but a lot of the stories in this collection reminded me of Bizarro lit. A lot of what’s in here seems to capture the banality of everyday life, albeit with a recurring tinge of weirdness (and this is the element that reminds me of Bizarro lit). Example, the story titled, "The Moon is a Tapestry, A Nightmare", opens with, “the moon is a beautiful place,” and in the following paragraph it jumps to “so you fuck elon on the moon.” Obviously, there is an element of the fantastical at play, since you cannot have sex with someone on the moon without some sort of oxygenated apparatus and even if you are wearing a “space suit” (we’ll call it), I cannot imagine it is very easy to have sex in this manner. My point is—do you see the sort of bizarre thoughts that immediately spring to mind? And this continues.
There’s the story, “My Special Creature” that has this moment in it: “When my boss looked me in the eyes, I was thinking about fucking him with a strap on. Like a small one because I care about him.” The surreal element here is imagining a situation like this actually taking place in meatspace, especially given the hierarchy at play (a boss and his/her subordinate). But then, there’s the injection of humour immediately after. A show of affection. Let’s look at one more example (of how I am reminded of Bizarro lit).
The story, “You and Me and Like, Where Do We Go, After All This Time?” opens like this: “I fucked my best most prestigious dog in the world today. Fucking my best dog in the world felt so good. I was at my best when I fucked my dog. No one could hold a candle to my dog when we fucked.” And the idea of this passage is how saying certain things now might seem or sound weird, but then fast-forward, say “500 years from now… in 500 years bestiality will be normal.” So you have a lot of moments that grab your attention (and whether or not it clicks with you is a matter of personal taste) but for the most part, as you continue on with the story, the !!! moment is eventually explained and folded in to the story in a way that begins to make sense (at least to the characters) and the mystique is unraveled.
While some of the strangeness does overlap with a few of the other stories, I would be completely avoiding a whole other aspect of the text if I didn’t mention stories like the titular, "High School Romance", "SATS" and "A Family History". These appear to be more grounded in reality. Almost like self-reflections from the author (and this is the part where I begin to ask, “How much of these characters are actually Marston?”).
One of the most magical aspects of literature, to me, is the potential for interpretation. Any and all questions I ask—no matter how silly or serious—none of them need to be answered or even addressed because, at the end of the day, all of it is a form of art. It is one person’s expression of multiple ideas. Marston brings up several topics, and in both abstract and totally not-abstract ways, engages in conversation. There’s even recurring motifs, like: the idea of the father figure, religion, personal accomplishments (as well as failures), (a lot about) family, (loss and confusion about) identity, the future and naturally, love. Unfortunately, I am not smart enough to deep-dive into any of these topics.
Going back to something I said in the beginning, something else that might explain why I have such a hard time with collections—I feel like I have to hit the reset button, every single time I reach the end (of one of these stories). And this is fine. It’s just not my preferred style of engagement. Although I will say this: I think what’s most neat about this style of story-telling… you get to see several different sides of the same person-as-writer. And when I think back to my undergrad years, anytime we were assigned short story collections, most of us would walk away simply ranking the stories in order of favourite to least-favourite. I never liked that. I always thought it detracted from the purpose of the work. And I think this is around the same time I began to realise the short story format just wasn’t for me. My point is that I think it is actually much harder (in some aspects) to put together a collection, especially one that stays with you. Anyone who is able to begin something and then complete it—see it through all the way to the end—will always have my respect. High School Romance is a project full of effort and personal dedication, that's a fact.
I want to end by discussing the final story, titled: "A Family History". In my opinion, this is the least-abstract of the bunch. Also, pretty much, the most hard-hitting exploration of what I assume is real-life (NB: this is not to say the other stories do not also talk about real life). Marston navigates through memories of his father and mother (again, a recurring theme here) in a manner that seems less like it is trying to say anything grandiose but… it appears to function more like a sort of necessary healing. What this means is, for stories like this, there isn’t very much to unpack (from a literary standpoint). What it does, instead, (and I am talking, specific to this story) is highlight the disconnect between being a son, a sibling, a mother, a father, a husband, a wife... a human.
"A Family History" ostensibly, is a giant framework of heavy questions, presented in a manner that is extremely matter-of-fact. And for a book (that I have described as being) full of abstractness, it ends with something that is 100% not-so-abstract. Though certain collections are meant to function independent of each other internally (as most stories were probably written over several years, for various publications, and maybe even, different reasons), I can’t help but feel that with High School Romance, though we are led to believe that this is a series of (possibly?) unconnected vignettes—to me, all of it reads like one giant story. A sort of culmination that both interrogates but also provides answers. You are reading about a person who, in real-time, is discovering who they are, while at the very end, also realizes, “oh—none of this is over yet.” And I think that's the unifying theme, here. That's what makes it powerful. That's what makes you go back to the first page, to read it all over again, with a renewed understanding of what perhaps(?)/maybe is the true signifier behind the whole of High School Romance. Then again... I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about. But I do know one thing: I think... what I would like to see next from Marston is a novel, or at the very least, something more longform. Yeah, that's it. I think that’s right.
June 26, 2022
Marston is a gem. A humorist, a satirist and perhaps a practitioner of dark absurdisms.
A lineage that may go back to something like Marvin Cohen’s 1973 book: The Monday Rhetoric of the Love Club and Other Parables.
Was a joy to read. Reading again as it’s that good.
A lineage that may go back to something like Marvin Cohen’s 1973 book: The Monday Rhetoric of the Love Club and Other Parables.
Was a joy to read. Reading again as it’s that good.
May 30, 2023
Wow, I guess I am an outlier here, but I did not like this at all. It's maybe slightly more than a 1 star, but not enough to round up to 2. I do enjoy weird and/or very short short stories, which this delivers. But many of them are...unreadable? For instance, one story opens, "There are times. Yes, there are times. He feels so filled up he no longer finds something big. There are things. Yes, there are things. In himself and he finds something big." I dislike this kind of inscrutable style that feels more like poetry.
And the bio - "Marston Hefner continues the legacy Hugh Hefner left him...." - feels like he just HAS to tell us who is dad is. Good for him?
And the bio - "Marston Hefner continues the legacy Hugh Hefner left him...." - feels like he just HAS to tell us who is dad is. Good for him?
December 12, 2023
A series of very short stories, most seem to have an element of autobiography to them. They are written in a stream of consciousness mode, not my cup of tea.
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