Heart of the Old Country

by Tim McLoughlin

South Brooklyn. Not the Brooklyn of Spike Lee or Matty Rich, but a those left behind in the white flight. Mike is 19 and at loose driving for Big Lou's Car Service and trying to decide if he should stay in college or drift into the omnipresent arena of local organized crime. 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. Echoing such urban low-life classics as Price's The Wanderers and Selby's Last Exit , this novel offers an honest, unromantic look at Brooklyn's underclass. Tim McLoughlin was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where he still resides. He is employed in the King's County Supreme Court. Critical praise for Heart of the Old "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 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. Farrell's Studs Lonigan and George Orwell's 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

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Crime

230 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2001

Reviews

[Becky S. Vickery]

For all its oddness, I enjoyed this book. It takes you along the estranged life of Mike, and as you follow him through his bad relationships, inability to trust and even falling in love, you really care about him. You worry for him, and hope that somehow his life will get better and he'll find a way out of what he's gotten himself into.

[Edward McKeown]

A magnificent, gritty first novel about the retail end of the criminal world. The life of the foot soldier in the crime, set against a background of familial conflict, confused dreams and hopes. So authentically written you know some of it had to have happened.

[Tony]

The titular old country here is South Brooklyn, generally in the vicinity of Bay Ridge -- an area without much of a profile compared to more well known neighborhoods like Bed-Stuy, Park Slope, Flatbush, Bensonhurt, etc... Taking place somewhere in the mid-1990s, the story revolves around teenage Mike and his ambivalent attempts to shake loose of the neighborhood he grew up in and its familiar but claustrophobic codes.

Mike lives in a small apartment with his father, a former garbageman who retired on disability and now is a neighborhood bookie. He works as a driver for a gypsy cab outfit run by Big Lou, who is the brother of a small-time local hood named Tony. Mike doesn't connect with many people, but has been dating neighborhood girl Gina for enough years that she assumes they'll be getting married soon. However, his part-time college class has brought him into contact with a sexy fellow student from Manhattan, who comes across like an alien creature to him. The closest thing to a friend he seems to have is another driver named Nicky, who's on the slippery slope of heroin addiction.

One night, Mike gets caught up in something serious that makes him realize just how shallow and tenuous his relationships are with the people in his neighborhood. It's a coming of age crisis that takes him further down the road with the local gangsters, but also has him resisting the path that is most familiar and obvious. He's a well developed and realistic version of a confused teenager trying to make sense of his adulthood and path in life, and it should appeal to readers who like their New York fiction to take place outside of Manhattan and among the working class.

[10thumbs]

We follow Mike around his Brooklyn neighborhood, Bensonhurst, for only a few short months. He struggles with the violence, the loss of his family, where he wants to go. He drives for a car service then makes the right move, almost by accident, then a wrong one. And maybe that's how Tim McLoughlin sees it: life is a series of choices — which work out or they don't, often by accident.

Liked Mike's description of the routiness of his neighborhood:

"... I heard people on the street talking, sometimes guys shouting, and I recognized most of the voices. They were kids from the block, a couple of years younger than me, throwing a football around — just raising hell. They'd knock off soon and drift up to the corner in a huddle to curse out teachers or bosses; and later when the girls came out, they'd strut and pose and try to get laid."

[Stephanie Spruyt]

The book would have been better if the story was focused on the father instead of the son. Let's hear about what made the old man tick and how he got to this place in life. I was excited to read this, since not many books take place in Bay Ridge and the surrounding area. Maybe next time.

[trickgnosis]

A really promising first novel, but McLoughlin hasn't written another yet--that I'm aware of anyway. I was surprised by the first person narration at first but over the course of the book it allows us to identify with the main character, who, by his own admission, is something of a loser. McLoughlin can write a truly funny, understated line. He does a good job of evoking Brooklyn circa the early 90's (I imagine that Brooklyn is probably gone now, I hope I'm wrong). And he ends things nicely, without trying to make everything too tidy. We are left to wonder what happens to Lou. I'm surprised this hasn't been turned into a movie yet.

[Melvin]

This book was written by my co-worker and the movie version has been completed and will be featured in an upcoming film festival. I can't wait. Great read! (not because he's my co-worker but because I'm from NY and the book is based in Brooklyn)

[Tuck]

the quirky neighborhood where son follows dad in the business of being a small time gangster trying for the big time payoff. author mcloughlin has since went to editing lots of Akashic's noir series.

[Thomas McDade]

Not bad. Father of protagonist stole the show.