Brewster
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
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Slouka's laconic dialogue resonates with regional authenticity, his late-1960's pop culture references ring true, and the stripped down prose style in his masterful coming-of-age novel recalls the likes of Tobias Wolff and Raymond Carver.
What Slouka also draws, with unerring accuracy, is the primacy of friendship and loyalty among teens who feel they are powerless. Slouka gives them a voice here, one filled with equal parts humor and pain.
Terrific.... [W]here Slouka distinguishes himself as an author of particular sensitivity and significance is in how accurately and memorably he is able to conjure up a particular mood that has no doubt been felt in every era, not just the late '60s and early '70s. There is a timeless sense of yearning here.--Adam Langer
This beautifully written coming-of-age story sings with wisdom and heart. Slouka's characters struggle to survive against a backdrop of remembered pain, routine violence and the threat of being drafted to Vietnam, fighting to retain a friendship that may just be able to save them.--Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of Once Upon a River
A masterpiece of winter sorrow...Slouka's real triumph here is capturing the amber of grief, the way love and time have crystallized these memories into something just as gorgeous as it is devastating.--Ron Charles
Gorgeously written...[A novel about] human frailty, friendship, yearning, heart and love.--John Barron
Readers familiar with Richard Russo's Mohawk, N.Y., might find some similarities in Mark Slouka's Brewster, N.Y....Gorgeous and touching.--Peter Geye
Brewster is subtly wrought and wholly moving, capturing with beautiful desperation the sense of personal insecurity overshadowed by an era of unwieldy international concerns.
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