Book Review: The Free School by Cody Goodfellow (Goodreads Author), James Quigley (Illustrator)

The Free School by Cody Goodfellow (Goodreads Author),

James Quigley (Illustrator)

Paperback, 44 pages

Published March 21st 2016 by Dim Shores

"A grimy psychedelic tale of weird hippie noir in a Southern California beach town, packed with action and nonconformity. Comes with 6" x 9" print and 3" x 4" sticker of cover art. Limited to 150 copies."

Cody Goodfellow is one of the best writers of our generation. This slim but neat little book highlights his ability to write Southern Calforinia. Cody trains a magnifying glass on his one neighborhood of San Diego and the tight beam of sunshine leaves a little burn behind. Ocean Beach is the small hipie beach town surrounded by San Diego. It was the part of town highlighted by the TV show Terriers. Unlike the show Cody paints a pretty grim but realistic picture of OB. I work in OB, so I had fun reading this on the bus ride home from OB to hillcrest.

The story of Ida a former student of a hippie cult Free School, Goodfellow brings his trademark weird to all 44 pages of this little book. I kinda wish this was a 200 page novel. There was enough story there.

This is a must read for Cody-iacs, but anyone who likes weird fiction will dig it.