Palo Alto: Stories

Now a &quot;provocative&quot; and &quot;impressive&quot; (<i>Variety</i>) film from director Gia Coppola (Francis Ford Coppola's granddaughter) - starring Emma Roberts, James Franco, Nat Wolff, and Val Kilmer - the fiction debut from James Franco that <i>Vogue</i> called &quot;compelling and gutsy.&quot;<br><br>James Franco's story collection traces the lives of a group of teenagers as they experiment with vices of all kinds, struggle with their families and one another, and succumb to self-destructive, often heartless nihilism. In &quot;Lockheed&quot; a young woman's summer - spent working a dull internship - is suddenly upended by a spectacular incident of violence at a house party. In &quot;American History&quot; a high school freshman attempts to impress a girl with a realistic portrayal of a slave owner during a classroom skit - only to have his feigned bigotry avenged. In &quot;I Could Kill Someone,&quot; a lonely teenager buys a gun with the aim of killing his high school tormentor, but begins to wonder about his bully's own inner life. <br><br>These &quot;spare and riveting&quot; (<i>O, The Oprah Magazine</i>) stories are a compelling portrait of lives on the rough fringes of youth.<i> Palo Alto</i> is, &quot;a collection of beautifully written stories&quot; (<i>Kirkus Reviews</i>, starred review) that &quot;capture with perfect pitch the impossible exhilaration, the inevitable downbeatness, and the pure confusion of being an adolescent&quot; (<i>Elle</i>) .<br> <br>Features a bonus essay by James Franco on Gia Coppola's film adaptation.