• Age: 12 to 18

I hate the world and everything in it. And that includes me."

Asked to write something for English class that expresses who he really is, 16-year-old Carson takes pleasure in blistering the page with hate for everything in his life. Stuck in a private school for kids who have repeatedly flunked out elsewhere, Carson knows he's got nowhere lower to sink to. "Flunk Out Academy" is the last resort for Carson and his classmates, in a small town where its deeply troubled students are decidedly unwelcome.

Then Carson meets someone who is even less optimistic than he. Christine struggles to get by, living in a trailer by herself, abandoned by her mother and father, so desperate that she has become almost immune to the pain and loneliness.

Confronted by her deep sadness, Carson starts to care for her and she for him. Once focused on someone other than himself, he begins to notice the world around him and realize that there is beauty as well as hopelessness, love as well as hate. Together the two teenagers struggle to work out how they are going to live in an imperfect world. There are no easy happy endings, but somehow the journey eventually makes the pain worthwhile."

No one has a clearer view of Atlantic Canada's literary endeavours over the past twenty years than Lesley Choyce. He is the founder of the literary journal Pottersfield Portfolio, and the publisher of Pottersfield Press. He has edited several fiction anthologies and has been the in-house editor of many books from Pottersfield Press including Making Waves, a collection of stories by emerging authors from Atlantic Canada. He is the author of more than fifty books in genres ranging from poetry and essays to autobiography, history and fiction for adults, young adults, and children. Among his recent books are the novels The Republic of Nothing, World Enough, and Cold Clear Morning, and the story collection Dance the Rocks Ashore. Choyce is the writer, host, and co-producer of the popular literary show television program, Off the Page with Lesley Choyce, which is broadcast across the country on Vision TV. He also teaches in the English department of Dalhousie University in Halifax and is leader of the rock band The Surf Poets.

Lesley Choyce's profile page

"Author Lesley Choyce has filled his latest book with quirky yet complex characters, and his adept portrayal of one teen's inner struggles - struggles that are not fuelled by extreme poverty, abuse, or neglect or any other external provocations - is at once profound and utterly realistic. Carson's story of subtle growth and quiet transformation will resonate with a wide range off readers. It is a beautifully honest book tinged with sadness, but ultimately filled with optimism and hope."
— Atlantic Books Today (Halifax)

"Each character in Lesley Choyce's novel is clearly profiled and dons a prevalent issue facing today's teens. The reader is immediately drawn into the story with Carson's powerful essay depicting who he is and how he thinks. In first person, the story is both intriguing and revealing. The language is rough and the sex scene is quite sensationalized for two sixteen year olds. Otherwise, this paperback will be a favorite among young adults and earns itself a 5 rating."
— Lane Education Service District (5 out of 5 Stars)

The End of the World As We Know It

Lesley Choyce is a man of many passions: author, musician, broadcaster, publisher, teacher, surfer. The protagonist in his latest novel shares none of them. As the novel opens, 16-year-old Carson hates the world and everything in it, including himself. He has been kicked out of three schools before he lands at Farnsworth (aka Flunk Out) Academy, a haven for ‘alienated achievers’ run by a brilliant but eccentric headmaster, Dr. Cromwell, whose affection for his students has its roots in his own experience.

Choyce perfectly captures the mutual distrust between the locals in the Nova Scotia fishing community and the rejected rich kids. The community and the school are peopled by complex, three-dimensional characters: the bookstore owner expounding on military history, the kind school cook who escaped from Vietnam, or Carson’s roommate who crawls the web trying to amass plutonium.

Despite his apparent disregard for life, Carson is an engaging narrator, by turns cynical and caring, as he looks back at a transforming relationship. When Carson meets Christine, a troubled young woman who lives in a local trailer park, her heavy eye makeup and scarred arms scare him. Even as he comes to care for her, he is tempted to return to his sadder but safe life. Christine remains, perhaps necessarily, an elusive character. Carson has always felt like the only dysfunctional member of an ideal family. Christine has survived years of parental neglect and poverty but, despite great pain, she has managed to harbour a capacity for play.

When a student drug dealer is arrested and the school is closed down, Carson and Christine flee to a cabin in the woods. But the real world intrudes on their Walden-like existence and time changes things. The end is not wrapped up in a tidy package, but Carson does come to a truce with the world. It is a journey that ends not, perhaps, as we would want it to, but with hope.

There is tenderness, humour and a delightful, fine intelligence at work in Choyce’s writing – with a respect for the thoughtful teen reader. How many YA novels contain references to Hannibal’s armies, Moliere’s The Misanthrope or Thoreau’s Walden?

The End of the World As We Know It

Carson’s stuck in a private school for kids who have repeatedly flunked out and hates the world around him. That is until he meets Christine, who is even less optimistic than he. Will this relationship change Carson’s life as he knows it?