The Perfume Factory Author:Alex Austin Port Beach is a faded resort where the children's playground is a polluted bay and a garbage dump that spreads across the town`s marshland like a cancer. Taverns outnumber grocery stores 20 to 1, unemployment is astronomical and hope is in short supply. Most ominous is the town's one source of jobs, the Perfume Factory, an industrial complex tha... more »t "... spilled out the sickly sweet odors that made Port Beach smell like the bottom of an old woman's handbag," an irony not lost on 17-year-old Sam Nesbitt, who views the Perfume Factory as a mocking reminder of the town's unchanging ugliness, oppression and empty promises. As the summer of his 18th birthday unfolds, and Sam finalizes his plans to escape the town and his violent abusive father, he meets Julie, a pretty, vivacious young woman from the city, who takes an unexpected interest in him, heightened by the lies he tells about himself to cement that interest. Sam, who has survived by suppressing his feelings and emotions "playing it cool" obsessively pursues her, setting aside his habitual caution, altering his escape plans, and experiencing his first romantic love and sexual experience, pain and joy in tow. The Perfume Factory has been lauded for its strong sense of place, stamp of authenticity and passionate portrayal of working-class American youth.« less