Brewster: A Novel
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
"Intense and elegiac…devastatingly agile." —New York Times Book Review
The year is 1968. The world is changing, and sixteen-year-old Jon Mosher is determined to change with it. Racked by guilt over his older brother’s childhood death and stuck in the dead-end town of Brewster, New York, he turns his rage into victories running track. Meanwhile, Ray Cappicciano, a rebel as gifted with his fists as Jon is with his feet, is trying to take care of his baby brother while staying out of the way of his abusive, ex-cop father. When Jon and Ray form a tight friendship, they find in each other everything they lack at home, but it’s not until Ray falls in love with beautiful, headstrong Karen Dorsey that the three friends begin to dream of breaking away from Brewster for good. Freedom, however, has its price. As forces beyond their control begin to bear down on them, Jon sets off on the race of his life—a race to redeem his past and save them all.
Mark Slouka's work has been called "relentlessly observant, miraculously expressive" (New York Times Book Review). Reverberating with compassion, heartache, and grace, Brewster is an unforgettable coming-of-age story from one of our most compelling novelists.
A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice
A Washington Post Notable Book of 2013
A Barron’s Favorite Book of the Year, selected by Daniel Woodrell
A Booklist Best Adult Books for Young Adults Editor’s Choice 2013
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This collection from Slouka (Brewster) features variations on the theme of encroaching death in 15 disquieting, sharply compressed short stories. Sometimes that feared death is that of the hero, as in "Dominion," in which a retired journalist is haunted by the cries of coyotes and the animals they kill. Sometimes it is that of an acquaintance, such as the little girl who waited for her school bus and died in an accident near the garden grown by the narrator of "Russian Mammoths." Frequently, it is the feared demise of a father or a son: fathers and sons in Slouka's world are enmeshed, trying desperately to protect each other, and sometimes succeeding. Even more often, it is the death or near-death of an animal, like the rabbit the Czech father of one narrator has to kill for food just before his relatives are taken away by the Nazis ("The Hare's Mask"); the giant fish a boy catches on summer vacation ("Justice"); or the beloved pet dog who, in the haunting and surreal "Dog," starts growing razor blades all over its body, so that to pet it is to risk agonizing injury. Even the most seemingly casual of these tales vibrate with danger, and together, they create the sense of a world where unendurable loss is just one misplaced footstep away.
