Analysis Of The Controversial Book 'Palo Alto' By James Franco

In 2010, a controversial book entitled Palo Alto was published. Written by famous hollywood actor James Franco, the novel is an intimate depiction of his turbulent childhood growing up in San Francisco, California. His brutally honest, intense tale accurately illuminates how American teenagers are the byproduct of an American society and its ideals, traditions, and perspectives of the world. Focusing on a handful of characters with a wide array of distinct personalities and varying ethnicities, James Franco addresses morsels of society that are often overlooked and ignored in order to maintain the fabricated façade of American perfection. Through his writing, he is able to shatter that idealistic perception and reveal America for what it really is: a profound sadness. Compared to other parts of the world, Western civilization is acclaimed for its emphasis on the
A boy goes drunk driving and kills someone, yet when he walks by that intersection a few years later, he is so distanced from his own savagery that he cannot remember if it actually happened or if he read it in a story. Similarly, three kids go to a graveyard and cut down a tree for fun. A soccer coach has sex with one of his students and then tosses her aside for another girl on her team. Needless to say, sadism is without-a-doubt a common pattern that can be applied to many aspects of human life, but what makes America unique is how it is paired with a pronounced feeling of aloofness. The first settlers in America inflicted exceptional suffering onto Native Americans, and yet those tales never made it to most history books; in fact, most commonly, the existence of Native Americans prior to imperialism was deleted altogether. All in all, in America, there seems to be a sense of discordance between what is said versus what is