Today, Oh Boy

by Wesley Moore III

Overview

 Today, Oh Boy   is the tale of one day in the life of Rusty Boykin and Ollie Wyborn, juniors at Summerville High School. The year is 1970, and as a counterculture emerges in their conservative South Carolina community, a cast of characters find themselves in the throes of social upheaval: preppies, jocks, hippies, and belligerent country boys who don't believe in giving peace a chance. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781685626129
Publisher:	Austin Macauley Publishers
Publication date:	03/31/2023
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	230
File size:	3 MB
Age Range:	15 - 17 Years

About the Author

A native South Carolinian, Wesley Moore III taught English at Porter-Gaud School in Charleston for 34 years before his retirement in 2018. He has published in literary magazines, won several writing awards, and has had a short story and poem anthologized.

In addition, he is a pictorial artist who specializes in narrative photo collage.

Wesley lives with his wife Caroline and stepdaughter Brooks on Folly Beach, South Carolina, the Edge of America. You can check out more of his writing and some of his art on his blog, You Do Hoodoo? (wlm3.com).

A native South Carolinian, Wesley Moore III taught English at Porter-Gaud School in Charleston for 34 years before his retirement in 2018. He has published in literary magazines, won several writing awards, and has had a short story and poem anthologized.

In addition, he is a pictorial artist who specializes in narrative photo collage.

Wesley lives with his wife Caroline and stepdaughter Brooks on Folly Beach, South Carolina, the Edge of America. You can check out more of his writing and some of his art on his blog, You Do Hoodoo? (wlm3.com).

Editorial Reviews

2023-08-21
Moore’s debut novel zeroes in on one day at a South Carolina high school in 1970.

On a cool October morning, 16-year-old Rusty Boykin is ready for a midterm exam at Summerville High. The principal, however, sends him home to change his shirt and cut his hair, which are in violation of the school’s dress code. This prompts Rusty’s chance encounter with his crush, Sandy Welch, who, like some of her friends, is still reeling from her boyfriend’s fatal plummet off a bridge only a week earlier. Most of their fellow students, including the brainy new kid, Ollie Wyborn, are stuck in classrooms, worrying over quizzes and itching for the bell to ring. Summerville High has its share of subcultures, including bullies, so-called hippies protesting the ongoing Vietnam War, and teens just struggling to fit in. The school operates in a community of “backward” conservatives who resist full integration of Blacks and whites and scoff at such wild notions as “permissive parents.” The author brightens this story with an effervescent cast; a variety of students and teachers headline their own subplots or steal others’ scenes, as when a teenager sent to the principal’s office simply walks out the front door while Kevin Manigault, one of the few Black people enrolled at Summerville, suffers another student’s blatantly racist comments in silence. Moore makes historical nods to Vietnam and the counterculture with sincerity, depicting serious moments like a school administrator effectively harassing a “negative” student until he drops out. There’s nevertheless plenty of room for humorous morsels: In one scene, a teacher “clandestinely transfers his flask” to his sports coat; later, an office assistant hears one side of the police chief’s telephone conversation with the principal, consisting of “uh huh” on repeat. An unexpected turn in the latter half of the novel helps bring this eventful day (and copious subplots) to a gratifying close.

Dazzling characters front this quietly sublime period piece.

Kirkus Reviews