You Can See More From Up Here

Guerin beautifully captures the powerful contradictions of the relationship between father and son, which combines elements of friendship and antagonism. He gradually discloses Walker's epiphanies about his dad, which transform the protagonist's personal opinion of him and the future arc of his own life. The prose is confident and confessional; Guerin draws the reader in by having Walker unflinchingly reveal his sense of disappointment in himself. Like the journalist he is, Walker clamors for the truth, whether it's consoling or not. A poignantly told story of ruminative remembrance.-- Kirkus Review

Mark Guerin's fully-realized debut novel asks important questions about how little of our lives -- and the relationships, incidents, and structural forces that form them -- we allow ourselves to see. This is a sensitive, clear-eyed, unsentimental story about flawed people who compel us to look more closely at their choices as well as our own. -- Christopher Castellani, author of Leading Men

In You Can See More From Up Here, Mark Guerin captures with evocative clarity both a unique time and place in American life and the complex emotional bonds of family and community that can tear and heal over a lifetime. It's rare and exciting to find such self-assured prose, raw honesty and unwavering momentum in a first novel. I just loved it. For anyone who has struggled with identity, purpose, integrity, righteousness and self-doubt in the face of an overbearing parent, You Can See More From Up Here offers familiarity, clarity, and for all of the complex emotions explored, a sense of satisfaction.-- Danny Rubin, writer of the movie and Broadway musical, Groundhog Day

You Can See More From Up Here does what all great novels do, smartly evoking a forgotten time and place, tugging at the heart strings of our seemingly innocent desires and relationships, and forcing us to confront our culpabilities as a protagonist confronts his own. This is a book that explores a troubled relationship between father and son, but it is also a book about power, about race, privilege and the failings we inherit. Guerin achieves all this with great tenderness and an impressive command of story and time. -- Michelle Hoover, author of Bottomland

Alternating between [1974 and 2004], the book examines the dichotomy of a strict father and his conscientious son, both products of their respective times. Its mood is retrospective at first, as Walker reconciles his dying father with the disciplinarian he knew. Sections from the past soon envelope the book, though, and are meticulous and absorbing in their details. By working toward doing the noble thing and making amends, Walker helps his father confront his own internal dilemmas. The book's end is cathartic, bringing all of the emotional subplots to a head. Racial issues are handled with honesty. Mark Guerin's debut maneuvers through heartbreak with grace, navigating family expectations, a community's pervasive racism, and how peoples' actions shape others' opinions. -- Forward Reviews

You Can See More From Up Here is an achingly real and thought-provoking novel about a son's quest to understand his troubled father and the long-ago summer that changed both of their lives. [It} vividly evokes the toxic behavior that keeps fathers from making genuine emotional connections with their sons, and the violence and bigotry lurking beneath the surface of a seemingly normal family.-- Emily Ross, author of Half in Love with Death