"He is always amazed by the difference between how he feels and how he appears, the way his single-minded determination can look like the panicky darting motion of a little kid," writes Kevin Brockmeier (The Brief History of the Dead, The Illumination) in his recently released A Few Seconds of Radiant Filmstrip: A Memoir of Seventh Grade. He's talking about his protagonist, 12-year-old Kevin, who's growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas, and attending seventh grade in the years of 1985 and 1986. He's talking about himself.