Saint Susan: Mesa My Heart

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 a young Robbie Gray again navigating a campus, this time the Kickshaw Preparatory School for Boys in Southern California.
This is the story of Robbie Gray, the young con-man and habitual liar, who gets a golden ticket out of Florida to attend Kickshaw Preparatory School For Boys in California. He meets Jonah, the Malibu Mafia surfer, William, the Artist and D & D Dungeon Master, Christian the athlete and pot head and rock and roll aficionado, and Cadogan, the ladies' man and stud-meister.
And then there is Susan. I can't say too much about her, no spoilers.
For all the frivolity, 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 along the way on this journey.