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Heart of the Old CountryBy Tim McLoughlin Fiction | Trade paperback
November 2003 -- Winner of Italy's Premio Penne Award "No voice in this symphony of a novel is more impressive than that of Mr. McLoughlin, a young writer with a rare gift for realism and empathy." -Sidney Offit, author of Memoir of the Bookie's Son Heart of the Old Country is a guided tour of the ethnic enclaves of South Brooklyn. Not the Brooklyn of Spike Lee or Matty Rich, but a counterpoint, where the hangers-on - those left behind in the white flight to the suburbs - continue to "do business" while defending their shrinking borders. Nineteen-year-old Mike is at loose ends: driving a beat-up Buick for Big Lou's Car Service and trying to decide whether he should remain a college student, marry his high school girlfriend, work full-time, or drift into the lucrative and omnipresent arena of local organized crime. Enter Nicky Shades, schoolyard hero turned junkie, just out of rehab and also driving for Lou. Nicky and Mike rekindle their uneven friendship as Nicky attempts the difficult path of sobriety. But old habits, especially Nicky's, are hard to break. One night, stoned to the gills, Nicky robs a social club where the local don operates. Mike's life is changed forever as he's forced to confront the grim realities of wiseguy justice and his own culpability in its execution. Although his father has spent his life walking the line between respectability and old loyalties as a small-time bookmaker, Mike knows that his own options are more extreme. He is either passing through this world or he will be defined by it. Echoing such urban low-life classics as Richard Price's The Wanderers and Hubert Selby's Last Exit to Brooklyn, Heart of the Old Country offers an honest, unromantic look at Brooklyn's underclass. The novel's dark, politically incorrect humor reflects the attitudes of these old-country inhabitants with unencumbered truthfulness and deep affection. Tim McLoughlin was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where he still resides. He is currently employed in the Kings County Supreme Court. Excerpts from Heart of the Old Country appeared in an earlier form in Confrontation magazine. Critical praise for Heart of the Old Country: "Set in the depths of working-class Brooklyn, this zippy first novel reads like an inspired cross between Richard Price's Bloodbrothers and Ross Macdonald's The Chill -- part coming-of-age story, part thriller. Streetwise 19-year-old protagonist Mike spends his days driving for a car service and his nights attending college part-time. While trying to figure out which endeavor is more futile, he winds up on the periphery of a murder that will forever alter his destiny. Add to the mix Mike's marriage-minded neighborhood girlfriend, his borderline-wiseguy bookie dad, and a sexy and sophisticated coed temptress, and you've got all the ingredients for what may be a whole new genre: Call it mook noir. A-" -Tom Sinclair, Entertainment Weekly "Tim McLoughlin writes about South Brooklyn with a fidelity to people and place reminiscent of James T. Farrellıs Studs Lonigan and George Orwellıs Down and Out in Paris and London. Among the achievements of his swiftly paced narrative is a cast of authentic and frequently complex characters whose voices reflect dreams and love as well as desperation to survive. No voice in this symphony of a novel is more impressive than that of Mr. McLoughlin, a young writer with a rare gift for realism and empathy." -Sidney Offit, author of Memoir of the Bookie's Son "Heart of the Old Country is a wise and tender first novel, though its youthful narrator would surely not like to hear that said. His boisterous, irreverent, often hilarious tough-guy pose is his armor, for he comes from the heart of old Brooklyn, where compassion and emotion are considered fatal weaknesses. Yet underneath it all, he shows a love for humanity so deep it might equal Dostoevksy's. Tim McLoughlin is a master storyteller in the tradition of such great New York City writers as Hubert Selby Jr. and Richard Price. I can't wait for his second book!" -Kaylie Jones, author of A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries |
