Bruiser: A Novel

ISBN-13: 9780743437769 / Angielski / Miękka / 2004 / 384 str.

Ian Chorao

Opis

After spending another morning hiding in the clothes hamper eavesdropping on his miserable parents, Bruiser realizes it's time to change his life. It's New York City during the late 1970s, and in the middle of a chilly autumn night he takes to the open road with Darla, a kindred spirit who lives across the alleyway. Their flight from the mounting tensions of home -- an adventure dotted with frightening episodes and surprising revelations -- is a journey in search of liberation and emotional truth.

This is Bruiser's tale in his own words, captured by first-time novelist Ian Chorao with uncanny precision and an ear for the staccato rhythms of childhood consciousness. Refreshingly free of sentimentality, Bruiser confronts the darkness and violence of life even as it illuminates its wonder and sweetness.

BRUISER is the story and the nickname of a nine-year-old boy living in a highly dysfunctional family in the 1970s (a bit like "The Ice Storm" on the Upper West Side) whose search for meaning and answers leads him to the open road and, eventually, the seeds of wisdom. Through the limitations of a young boys awareness, we see the deteriorating marriage of his distant father and struggling mother, and the effects of their conflicts on Bruiser and his two older brothers. The disjunction between his literal misinterpretations, which often contain an emotional truth, and our adult understanding of the circumstances, creates the tension that runs throughout the novel.Bruiser has a kindred spirit in Darla, the prococious daughter in an already broken home who lives across the alleyway. As the tension mounts in each household, Darla conceives of a plan for the two of them that takes Bruiser on the most frightening and illuminating journey of his life, and one that will have tragic consequences.