New York: Simon & Schuster, (1999) dj. Hardcover first edition - Barry is best known as a cartoonist with a dark sense of humor, but this novel - which intertwines the stories of Roberta Robbeson as an 11 year old in 1967 and a 16 year old in 1971 - is very dark indeed - it begins with a drug induced rant against the world "Once upon a cruddy time on a cruddy street on the side of a cruddy hill in the cruddiest part of town..." and ends with a nightmarish denouement in the Nevada desert. Illustrated by Barry. 305 pp. Illustrated endpapers. ISBN: 0-684829746.