Brewster A Novel [Paperback]

[I]ntense and elegiac novel& Sloukas storytelling is sure and patient, deceptively steady and devastatingly agile.A masterpiece of winter sorrow&Sloukas 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.Gorgeously written&[A novel about] human frailty, friendship, yearning, heart and love.Readers familiar with Richard Russos Mohawk, N.Y., might find some similarities in Mark Sloukas Brewster, N.Y.&Gorgeous and touching.ReadingTerrific&. [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.Sloukas laconic dialogue resonates with regional authenticity, his late-1960s 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.Despite delving bravely into despairingly dark subject matter, [Brewster] is still somehow infused with hope and light, achieving a sort of literary chiaroscuro.&The dark undertow of Sloukas prose makesIf ecstasy was Nabokovs keynote, Sloukas is passion. I can think of no one else who writes with such brazen fervor, with so much heart poured into every line. He is the perfect writer for a Passion Play about youth: youths ardor, youths anguish, youths nakedness.This beautifully written coming-of-age story sings with wisdom and heart. Sloukas characters struggle to survive against a backdrop of remembered pain, routine violence and the threat of being drafted to Vietnam, fils?