Glory Days

Plenty of us are happy to leave high school firmly in the past. Not Lillian Curtis. The Class of ‘88 grad, now 38, counts down the days till her 20-year reunion — and the chance to see her senior year sweetheart, for whom she still has the hots — in Jancee Dunn’s sweet, nostalgic debut novel Don’t You Forget About Me (out tomorrow).

Rather than take her heroine to a Romy-and-Michelle level of loser-dom, Dunn paints a relatable portrait of a down-on-her-luck woman — she’s newly divorced, too depressed to work and living with her parents in New Jersey. Eager to suppress her problems, Lillian retreats to a simpler time of Culture Club cassettes and Sergio Valente jeans.

The book is a paean to all things 80s (check out that allusive title). And Dunn, a former Rolling Stone writer, puts her encyclopedic knowledge of the time on display, from the Beech-Nut Fruit Stripe gum reference to Lillian’s “poster for the Squeeze Singles album that Molly Ringwald had...in Sixteen Candles.” You may be content to Forget the past, but Lillian can relive it for you.

Don’t You Forget About Me will be available tomorrow from Villard Books.

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