Grody to the Max Presents

1984. Ronald Reagan runs for re-election. A risque young singer named Madonna scandalizes audiences at the first ever MTV Video Music Awards. Teens flock to the multiplex to watch Ghostbusters, Sixteen Candles, and The Karate Kid. Wendy’s poses the question: Where’s the beef? And at the Newingston Mall in suburban New Hampshire, every shopper simultaneously dissolves into a fizzing slurry of goo.

Autumn 1983. Michael Jackson’s Thriller dominates the charts. Tom Cruise slides across the floor in his underpants. Mr. T pities the fool. And on the campus of Boston’s Holbrook University, Nathan Harrington is pretty sure he’s turning into a werewolf. Nathan had a plan. Graduate with honors, marry a trophy wife, run for office. Then he met Gretchen Stump–AKA “The Dog Girl”–the hirsute transfer student from East Nowhere, Maine. Gretchen and Nathan are from different worlds. Perhaps even different species. They make no sense together. And yet, they can’t stay away from each other.

1981. The Reagan era begins. Kids line up at arcades to plunk quarters into Donkey Kong machines. 750 million tune in to watch Prince Charles and Diana tie the knot. Olivia Newton John gets physical on something called Mtv. And in Crystal Falls, New Hampshire, teenagers are getting hacked to pieces by a hedge shear-wielding lunatic at Camp Mattapan.

1982. Reagan’s grin beams from Zenith televisions. “Eye of the Tiger” blasts from boom boxes. Pac-man Fever infects arcades. E.T. phones home, the world tries to solve the Rubik’s Cube, and on the grimy streets of Times Square, Frankie Marino is about to turn into a lobster. Dim-witted but kind-hearted, Frankie is at the bottom rung of mafia hierarchy, doing grunt work for mob boss Sal Migliachio, like wiping down peep booths, or breaking the thumbs of deadbeat debtors.