The Basic Eight is the debut novel by author Daniel Handler published in 1998. The book is full of sarcastic plot devices that poke fun at high school English classes, standardized testing, satanic panic and talk-show analysts. For example, Handler labels foreshadowing explicitly as such. In addition to creating a farce on high school English, he includes vocabulary words and study questions at the end of some of Culp's diary entries. During the school year in which the book takes place, Flan appears in the high school production Othello, and compares her life to that of the characters in the... play. Flannery Culp is a senior at Roewer High School in San Francisco. Over the course of the year, Flan records the events of her life in a diary - which, after some heavy editing by Flannery herself, some years after the fact, becomes the narrative. She and her seven close friends refer to themselves as "The Basic Eight"; they are an exclusive clique, hosting the Grand Opera Breakfast Club, and regular dinner and garden parties, as they cope with the stresses of their final high school year.
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| Author: | Daniel Handler |
| Genre: | Fiction |
| Year published: | 1998 |
| Number of editions: | 3 |