Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos by Nash Jenkins (2023)

In 2018, our journalist narrator begins constructing the facts of the case of FOSTER DADE (16), a second-year transfer to the Kennedy School in New Jersey. The narrator arrived as a student at Kennedy seven months after Foster was expelled and heard the story of his drug sales and conflict with various students as a kind of legend.

Flashing back to 2008, Foster is the child of recently divorced parents, his father having been outed as gay and closeted. Wanting to get away from the tension at home, he asks his mother to send him to boarding school and he arrives at Kennedy. A year behind the social scene, Foster is relieved when JACK ALBRIGHT (16) invites him to hang out with his friends, where he meets ANNABETH WHITTAKER (16), with whom he is immediately infatuated. Foster feels uncomfortable around this group of cool kids and quickly retreats back to his room, where he smokes weed with his suitemate, JAE-HYUN AN (16).

Foster struggles in his early weeks at Kennedy, unsure how to relate to his ultra-wealthy classmates and generally insecure and eager to fit it. He experiences panic attacks and when he comes home for Thanksgiving break, his mother sends him to a psychiatrist who prescribes him Xanax, Lexapro, and Adderall for good measure. Back on campus, he and Annabeth bond over the side effects of anti-depressants. He begins using Adderall to counter the foggy effects of his Lexapro.