The Quartzsite Trip

New York: Atheneum, 1980. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/Good. Gary Null (Author photograph). [10], 306, [4] pages. Glossary. Signed and dated by the author on the fep. The DJ has some wear and soiling. In 1962, as Jack Paar leaves the Tonight Show and Richard Nixon abandons politics, P. J. Cooper, an eccentric English teacher, guides a group of high-school seniors on a journey of self-discovery during a vacation jaunt to the desert. William Hogan (born 1937) is an American novelist and film producer. Hogan was born in Kansas City and grew up in California. He has graduate degrees in English, theology, and philosophy. He has worked as a television executive, and movie producer. Hogan is best known for his coming-of-age novel The Quartzsite Trip. The book, set largely in the town of Quartzsite, Arizona, is a cult classic of which Kirkus Reviews said, "[T]here's an innocence of time and culture laid out here that is sweet and true: the trip is irresistible, as good as American Graffiti, and maybe--for its sculpted, more than nostalgic shape--even better." Hogan was also a partner in Ten-Four Productions, a movie company based in California in the 1970s and 1980s. The company's work includes Rainbow, a made-for-television biopic about actress Judy Garland, and one season of the television series Harper Valley PTA. In 1962, Richard Nixon gave his last press conference, and Johnny Mathis sang "Misty." And in 1962, English teacher P. J. Cooper led thirty-six high school seniors on a spring vacation jaunt from Los Angeles to the desert near Quartzsite, Arizona. No student could earn the privilege of going on the Quartzsite Trip; it was given, and P. J. Cooper gave it. No activities were planned; they happened, and P. J. Cooper made them happen. What few rules there were were also P. J.'s and he enforced them with a whim of iron. In William Hogan's utterly delightful novel, the Quartzsite Trip turns out to be an utterly memorable experience. Here, the lion lies down with the lamb, the merciful find mercy, and the meek inherit the earth. Here, the tables are turned, and as they turn we meet a riotous and endearing cast of characters -- among them Deeter Moss, secret cowboy and closet Dodgers expert, who never talked to anybody before he went on the Quartzsite Trip; Margaret Ball, whose moonlit face displayed what pimples hid; Mary Allbright, who had a very secret fear and who, on the Quartzsite Trip, came up with a very secret plan to resolve it; and P. J. Cooper himself, the best teacher anyone ever had, who gave extra credit for Winnie the Pooh and The Catcher in the Rye and who discovered, in 1962, that the Great Equalizer makes rules too. Derived from a Kirkus review: The time is 1962 (which you're unlikely to forget, since Hogan keeps reminding you), and the place is John Muir High School in Los Angeles: white, Protestant, solidly middle-class, made up of a student body predictably broken down into "jocks" and "pukes," "whores" and "good girls." And each year a charismatic, individualistic English teacher named P. J. Cooper picks 36 seniors to go out into the Arizona desert with him for a week during spring vacation; only the most incompatible are invited, the ones most likely to interact least predictably--a gesture to P. J.'s amused faith in "The Great Equalizer." So Stretch Latham, a basketball star worried about his sexual endowments, is going, and so is Ann Hosack, a "whore." Margaret Ball, ugly but spiritually on the mark, is along--as is Mary Allbright, always afraid she's pregnant. And there's Deeter Moss too: quiet, knowledgeable, the ultimate "puke"--chosen by P. J. as the one most likely to gain the most experience. So, 36 high-school seniors in the desert in 1962 with only five chaperones. . . which doesn't add up to sin and sex. What it does add up to: fantasies and fears of sex; boasts and worries about Trojans and Tampax, jockey shorts and panty-girdles; shaving-cream fights and outdoor lavatories. And Hogan, with remarkable skill, gets the ceremonial and American qualities of all this down perfectly, exhilaratingly.