The Tetherballs of Bougainville

by Mark Leyner

In this heartwrenching day-in-the-life memoir, a 13-year-old boy named Mark Leyner goes to prison to watch his father, Joel, be executed by lethal injection. Meanwhile, inconveniently due the very next day, is a screenplay Mark was supposed to have written and submitted in competition for the Vincent and Lenore DiGiacomo / Oshimitsu Polymers America Award, which is given every year for the best screenplay written by a student at Maplewood Junior High School. Written as autobiography, screenplay, and movie review, The Tetherballs of Bougainville twists three familiar narrative forms into an outlandishly compelling story. Leyner's use of these media-driven formats brilliantly reflects our secret, shameful, and hilarious desire to experience our private lives as mass entertainment. This wicked comedy skewers and celebrates American pop culture in the late twentieth century. Leyner's version of our lives is so deeply funny because it is so painfully true.