Cicadas. Variations of brown. Dragstar handlebars. Pop music. Barry Divola’s new collection of short stories Nineteen Seventysomething oozes those hazy summer afternoons when time dissolved and beanbags rustled in our struggle to regain composure because THAT boy or THAT girl had just entered the room.

Laced with reflection, these stories are written to transport us back to teenage days before the world changed, before we knew our dreams might never come true, before we fully understood the dynamics of friendships. Seemingly gentle but exposing the violence and torment of teenager-hood, Divola dips in and out of, what could almost appear autobiographical, reminiscence. Some stories follow a narrative, some meet up months later. Some just sit staring back at us. With a slightly melancholic, or even mournful eye, he shows us freshly formed teenagers who remind us of someone, someone perhaps a bit like us, if, like me, you are white, middle class and now 40-something. Divola’s stories are steeped in the awkwardness of those years. He takes us back to before we grew up.