Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Read Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Online
Authors: Jesse Andrews
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Andrews, Jesse.
Me & Earl & the dying girl / by Jesse Andrews.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4197-0176-4
[1. Friendship—Fiction. 2. Leukemia—Fiction. 3. High schools—Fiction.
4. Schools—Fiction. 5. Family life—Pennsylvania—Fiction. 6. Jews—United
States—Fiction. 7. Pittsburgh (Pa.)—Fiction. 8. Humorous stories.] I. Title.
II. Title: Me and Earl and the dying girl.
PZ7.A56726Me 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2011031796
Text copyright © 2012 Jesse Andrews
Book design by Chad W. Beckerman
The text in this book is set in 10.75-point Adobe Garamond.
Published in 2012 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
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To Schenley, which Benson is not
A Note from Greg Gaines, Author of This Book
Chapter 1. How It Is Possible to Exist in a Place That Sucks So Bad
Chapter 2. The First Day of Senior Year in Convenient Script Format
Chapter 3. Let’s Just Get This Embarrassing Chapter Out of the Way
Chapter 4. Where Are They Now?
Chapter 7. The Gaines Family: A Summary
Chapter 9. A More or Less Typical Conversation with Earl
Chapter 10. I Put the “Ass” in “Casanova”
Chapter 12. I Put the "Idiot" in "Videotape"
Chapter 13. Even More Earl Backstory
Chapter 15. Gaines/Jackson: The Collected Works
Chapter 16. Hopefully the End of What Has Been a Ridiculous Amount of Earl Backstory
Chapter 17. Mr. McCarthy’s Office
Chapter 18. Drugs Are the Worst
Chapter 19. Earl Betrays Our Entire Creative Partnership While I Am Distracted by the Munchies
Chapter 20. Batman Versus Spider-Man
Chapter 22. Spider Versus Wasp
Chapter 24. Pasty Teen Has Uneventful Day
Chapter 25. A Moron’s Guide to Leukemia
Chapter 27. You and Me and a Perpetually Exploding Turkey Makes Three
Chapter 28. Rachel the Film: Brainstorming
Chapter 29. Rachel the Film: The Hallmark Version
Chapter 30. Rachel the Film: The Ken Burns Version
Chapter 31. Rachel the Film: The Sock Puppet Version
Chapter 32. Rachel the Film: The Wallace & Gromit Version
Chapter 33. Jesus, Now What Am I Supposed to Do
Chapter 34. Fight Club, Except Lamer
Chapter 37. The Ends of Our Lives
I have no idea how to write this stupid book.
Can I just be honest with you for one second? This is the literal truth. When I first started writing this book, I tried to start it with the sentence “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” I genuinely thought that I could start this book that way. I just figured, it’s a classic book-starting sentence. But then I couldn’t even figure out how you were supposed to follow that up. I stared at the computer for an hour and it was all I could do not to have a colossal freak-out. In desperation, I tried messing with the punctuation and italicization, like:
It was the
best
of times?
And
it was the worst of times?!!
What the hell does that even mean? Why would you even think to do that? You wouldn’t, unless you had a fungus eating your brain, which I guess I probably have.
The point is, I have no idea what I’m doing with this book. And the reason for that is, I’m not a writer. I’m a filmmaker. So now you’re probably asking yourself:
1. Why is this guy writing a book and not making a film?
2. Does it have to with the brain-fungus thing?
Answer Key
1. I’m writing a book instead of making a film because I have retired from filmmaking forever. Specifically, I retired after making the Worst Film Ever Made. Usually the goal is to retire after making the best possible thing you can make—or, even better, die—but I did the opposite. A brief outline of my career would look like this:
i. Many Bad Films
ii. A Mediocre Film
iii. Some OK Films
iv. A Decent Film
v. Two or Three Good Films
vi. A Bunch of Pretty Great Films
vii. The Worst Film Ever Made
Fin.
How bad was that film? It killed someone, that’s how bad it was. It caused an actual death. You’ll see.
2. Let’s just say that it would explain a lot of things if there were a fungus eating my brain. Although that fungus would have to have been eating my brain for basically my entire life. At this point it’s possible that the fungus has gotten bored and left, or died from malnutrition or something.
I do actually want to say one other thing before we get started with this horrifyingly inane book. You may have already figured out that it’s about a girl who had cancer. So there’s a chance you’re thinking, “Awesome! This is going to be a wise and insightful story
about love and death and growing up. It is probably going to make me cry literally the entire time. I am so
fired up
right now.” If that is an accurate representation of your thoughts, you should probably try to smush this book into a garbage disposal and then run away. Because here’s the thing:
I learned absolutely nothing from Rachel’s leukemia.
In fact, I probably became
stupider
about life because of the whole thing.
I’m not really putting this very well. My point is this: This book contains precisely zero Important Life Lessons, or Little-Known Facts About Love, or sappy tear-jerking Moments When We Knew We Had Left Our Childhood Behind for Good, or whatever. And, unlike most books in which a girl gets cancer, there are definitely no sugary paradoxical single-sentence-paragraphs that you’re supposed to think are deep because they’re in italics. Do you know what I’m talking about? I’m talking about sentences like this:
The cancer had taken her eyeballs, yet she saw the world with more clarity than ever before.
Barf. Forget it. For me personally, things are in no way more meaningful because I got to know Rachel before she died. If anything, things are
less
meaningful. All right?
So I guess we should just start.
(I just realized that you may not know what
“fin”
means. It is a filmmaking term. Specifically, it is French for “This movie is over, which is good, because it probably confused the hell out of you, because it was made by French people.”)
Fin
for real this time.
