Bill lives in Chandler, Arizona, with his husband, Chuck, and their Labradoodles of Truth, Mabel and Buford. Please visit his website at www.billkonigsberg.com or follow him at @billkonigsberg.


Text copyright © 2015 by Bill Konigsberg
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This book 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
Konigsberg, Bill, author.
The porcupine of truth / Bill Konigsberg. — First edition.
pages cm
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Carson Smith is bored of Billings, Montana, and resentful that he has to help his mother take care of his father, a dying alcoholic whom he has not seen in fourteen years — but then he meets Aisha, a beautiful African American girl who has run away from her own difficult family, and together they embark on a journey of discovery that may help them both come to terms with their lives.
ISBN 978-0-545-64893-6 (alk. paper) 1. Dysfunctional families — Juvenile fiction. 2. Children of alcoholics — Juvenile fiction. 3. African American teenage girls — Juvenile fiction. 4. Friendship — Juvenile fiction. 5. Billings (Mont.) — Juvenile fiction. [1. Family problems — Fiction. 2. Alcoholism — Fiction. 3. African Americans — Fiction. 4. Friendship — Fiction. 5. Billings (Mont.) — Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.K83518Po 2015
[Fic] — dc23
2014027136
First edition, June 2015
Cover art and design by Nina Goffi
e-ISBN 978-0-545-64894-3
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