A Novel About Forbidden Love. And Cafeteria Food.

The year is 1980… The Dean is out to get you, your girlfriend’s dad is a cop, and your best friend just got tickets to see Pink Floyd and wants to know if you’d like to drop acid while staring at a giant talking asshole. What could possibly go wrong?

Saint Susan is the prequel to David R. Smith’s campus novel The Campbell Club (2024). We find young Robbie Gray, liar and conman (or storyteller, your choice), having escaped his conservative Florida life, again navigating a campus, this time the Kickshaw Preparatory School for Boys in glamorous Santa Barbara. It is an elite school filled with the offspring of the rich, but Robbie’s star begins to shine due to his cunning and (perhaps deep down) his desire to do good in an evil world.

Saint Susan is an historical novel of the 1970s and is filled with period references. For Robbie and his friends iconic shows like Star Trek and Kung Fu are touch points. Also movies like Blazzing Saddles, Animal House, and Star Wars. The music and musicians of the period are embedded in the story. And then there's the weed... The norms of this time might be somewhat foreign to us now, but love, friendship, and the struggle for truth amidst sacrifice, are all timeless themes.

At its core, Saint Susan is about the quest for friendship and love in a lonely world, where success is everything, fear of disappointing a parent can ruin a life, and overpowering emotion is only a kiss away. Life is fleeting and we lose people we love on this journey.

Contains some triggering contents: Drug use, adult homosexuality, teen homosexuality, explorations of gender and identity, the N-word, and suicide.