Kirjahaku

The summer after graduating from college, 22-year-old Danny Wolinski takes a cross-country US road trip with his friend, Ian Perez, hoping to find the inspiration to reach his songwriting potential, start a band, and avoid student teaching in the fall.Danny is tormented by intense physical and psychological pain and sees music as his only relief, but the more he searches for this inspiration in an America filled with endless parties, heavy drugs, and lost souls, the more he questions whether it exists.A deeply disturbing and psychological coming-of-age novel, THE SUMMER OF CRUD explores the complexities of friendships, masculinity, sex, mental illness, and addiction, and shows how the quest to unlock one's creativity can both inspire and destroy a person.

"Earnest . . . Compelling . . . successfully captures the anger, frustration, and freedom of kids on the brink of adulthood." -Kirkus Reviews, Recommended ReviewA group of troubled but charismatic boys in a tough Buffalo, NY neighborhood play basketball at a local park and dream of winning a state high school championship. Driven by raw talent and killer instinct, they dominate the court, but everywhere else, they feel like losers.Hammond is told through the eyes of James Lombardi, a precocious but mentally ill boy who believes winning a championship will ease his "Evil Thoughts" and save his family, long haunted by generations of substance abuse, uncontrollable rage, and suicide.A dark but humorous coming-of-age novel, Hammond offers a poetic and disturbing look inside the complex mind of an adolescent boy as he slowly learns that having the heart of a champion can sometimes be more burden than blessing.*Hammond is the first novel in a loosely-linked series with The Summer of Crud, Understanding the Alacr n, and Developing Minds: An American Ghost Story as books two, three, and four, respectively.

A group of recent college graduates struggle with alienation and addiction as they try to survive a year of teaching at dysfunctional Miami public schools.

Ten months--that's how long twenty-six-year-old writer and aspiring actor Jay Sakovsky decides to stay and teach in the bohemian beach town of Soul City, California, to save up cash and overcome his anxiety before moving on to Hollywood.But after several "friendly chats" with the vice principal about hangover sweats and black eyes from barroom brawls, Jay sees a therapist who helps him connect his self-destructive tendencies and artistic blocks to his undiagnosed OCD, setting him on a ten-year healing journey that drives him to near madness as he explores the limits of his heart, creativity, and psyche.A surreal, darkly comic, and psychologically epic novel, The Soul City Salvation explores mental illness, friendship, aging, masculinity, modern love, the creative process, spiritual awakening, and fighting for respect in an uncaring world.*The Soul City Salvation is the fifth and final book in a loosely-linked series, with Hammond, The Summer of Crud, Understanding the Alacran, and Developing Minds: An American Ghost Story as books one-four. Each book can be read independently of one another, but they work best as a series.