A nine-year-old boy is overwhelmed by the pain of his irrationally raging father and his artistically stifled mother, in a situation that causes him to take to the open road with a young kindred spirit named Darla.
A nine-year-old boy, growing up on the upper west side of Manhattan in the late 1970s, is overwhelmed by the pain of his irrationally raging father and his artistically stifled mother, a situation that causes him to take to the open road with young kindred spirit Darla. A first novel.
After spending another morning hiding in the clothes hamper eavesdropping on his miserable parents, Bruiser escapes to the open world outside. Set free into the chilly air of a noisy spring day in the city, slamming around, screaming crazy with guys on the block, Bruiser thinks of home and realizes it's time to change his life. So begins the journey of a nine-year-old boy with a rich visual imagination who is trying to make sense of the world. This is Bruiser's account in his own words, captured by first-time novelist Ian Chorao with uncanny precision and an ear for the staccato rhythms of childhood consciousness. A novel refreshingly free of sentimentality, Bruiser confronts the darkness and violence of life even as it illuminates its wonder and sweetness.
With a remarkably original narrative style, Bruiser spirits readers back to the Upper West Side of Manhattan in the late 1970s. From here, we follow Bruiser on his unlikely search for meaning, solace, and eventually the seeds of a tentative, hard-won maturity. Overwhelmed by the pain and confusion of a troubled home life - his father is remote and given to irrational rages, his mother is undone by stifled artistic aspirations - Bruiser takes to the open road with Darla, a ten-year-old 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, and with potentially tragic consequences.
