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Saint John of the Five Boroughs

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UNBRIDLED ALOUD

Interview with author Edward Falco

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WHAT READERS ARE SAYING:

“In times of ordinary violence, Falco’s superbly engaging novel is a primer in the art of picking up the pieces.”—American Book Review

“Falco here goes for a heft and complexity new to him, a saga of a family ruptured and an artist discovering herself, in which far-flung elements knit together skillfully, movingly—and not a little frighteningly.  As always in Falco, the drama is dominated by its women, seen frankly yet with empathy.  Early missteps all but hobble the women here, younger and older.  But this winning accomplishment, a new benchmark for its author, reminds us that few things can be so beautiful as a scar.”—John Domini on Emerging Writers’ Network

“An enjoyable read, a rich and redolent work that recaptures an evocative experience of simply settling down and getting lost in a good book.”— Blogcritics.org


“The novel is action-packed in the best sense of that overused phrase, with events that build like a really good movie. What thrills me about the novel’s plot is the way in which it explores a very physical drama involving love relationships, the current war in Iraq, and even mobsters, while also digging into the psychological tensions between the book’s diverse set of personalities. The physical world of St. John precipitates action nicely, and the characters are forced to make real, palpable decisions that affect the individuals around them in important ways.”—Corduroy Books


“Falco’s latest examines the underbelly of love and relationships, but he also populates the story with a cast of diverse and unusual characters. As the plot
twists and turns, readers don’t know what to expect next…”—Booklist


Think of Edward Falco as William Blake with cinematic potential. As with Blake’s famed paeans to the lamb and the “tyger tyger, burning bright,” Falco’s novel seeks to “shew the two contrary states of the human soul,” to dissect innocence and experience down to the rumbling guts. . . Falco goes deep to explore themes of purity and corruption, beauty and decay, stupidity and wisdom . . .

The San Diego-Union Tribune

It might be an axiom that talented American novelists grow on trees at the moment, but here is another addition to their ranks

The London Independent

EDWARD FALCO

SAINT JOHN OF THE FIVE BOROUGHS

When 22-year-old Avery Walker, a senior at Penn State, meets Grant Danko, a 37-year-old performance artist from Brooklyn whose stage name is Saint John of the Five Boroughs, her life changes radically as she leaves college to live with Grant in Brooklyn and pursue a life as an artist.  Worried about Avery, her mother, Kate, and her aunt, Lindsey, and Lindsey’s husband, Hank, travel to Brooklyn, where they all face a crisis of their own and make life-altering choices.

Grant is an angry guy with a curiously attractive personality and a coterie of bright, artistic friends.  He’s used his good looks and his accomplishments, and the accomplishments of those friends, to get by while he works hauling stolen goods for his gangster uncle. He carries dark secrets that have caused his life to go off the rails. Grant is about as lost as a man can get, adept at making wrong choices. But when he finally faces his explosive moment of truth, something extraordinary happens.

Saint John of the Five Boroughs is beautifully turned—a stunning and layered novel about the effects of violence, both personal and cultural, on its characters’ lives. It’s about the way violence twists character, but also about the possibilities for redemption and change, for achieving a kind of personal grace. Edward Falco once again proves to be a master of urgency and suspense, of events careening out of control, as he brilliantly explores why we make the choices we make—both the ones that threaten to destroy our lives, and those choices that might save us.

BOOK INFORMATION

$16.95 / $19.95 Can | Fiction Paperback | 6x9 | 432 pages

October 2009

ISBN: 978-1-932961-88-1 | Carton Quantity: 20

EISBN: 978-1-93607-111-1

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READ EXCERPT

Across the street, the white door that read Bright Red Door looked back at her as if it represented a secret message she couldn’t quite interpret, God talking to her in puzzles and parables; then Grant pulled up in a yellow cab, startling her, since he rarely took cabs.  He got out of the backseat, busy slipping his wallet into his pocket; at the bench, he leaned down to kiss her and then stood back a moment to look her over.  “You’re gorgeous,” he said. “Where’d the dress come from?”

Avery said, “You’re late. Dinner and arriving in a cab? Have we come into money?”

Grant took her hand and pulled her up. “We have,” he said, “as a matter of fact. A work bonus.” Inside Enid’s, they stood quietly side by side near the entrance and waited to be seated. Across the room, a girl in a miniskirt crossed her legs in an ancient photo booth, the curtain pushed aside, an Out of Order sign taped next to her head. Avery looked up at the tin ceiling, at a shelf dangling from the rafters, holding a junked receiver, its wires connected to nothing; at a big curving-arrow liquor sign that had obviously once hung outdoors and now added to the flea-market atmosphere of the decor, as did the gold-sequined camel hanging on a wall with peeling paint. Grant said, “I’m hungry,” and then, as if his wish had conjured her up, a pretty girl in a granny dress appeared, led them to an open table, and dropped two menus in front of them. Grant watched the girl walk away. “I’m getting the meat loaf,” he said. “It’s good here.”

Avery held the menu to her breast, her hand over her heart as if pledging allegiance. She said, “Guess who paid me a visit at work today?” “Who?” Grant looked up from the menu.  “My mother,” Avery said, her face a mix of shock and wonder.

THE AUTHOR

Edward Falco

Ed Falco most recently is the author of the NYTimes best-selling novel, The Family Corleone, a prequel to Mario Puzo’s The Godfather and subsequent saga.

Falco has received innumerable awards, prizes and fellowships, and is the author of four previous novels, four story collections, and numerous plays, poems, essays, and critical reviews, including the novels St John of the Five Boroughs (Unbridled 2009), Wolf Point (Unbridled 2006), and the story collection Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha: New and Selected Stories (Unbridled 2006). His stories have been published widely in journals, including The Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, The Missouri Review and TriQuarterly, and collected in The Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, and several anthologies, including, Blue Cathedral: Short Fiction for the New Millennium. An early innovator in the field of digital writing, Falco’s online work includes Self-Portrait as Child w/Father (Iowa Review Web), Circa 1967-1968 (Eastgate Reading Room), “Charmin’ Cleary” (Eastgate Reading Room), and “Chemical Landscapes Digital Tales (with photographer Mary Pinto, in Volume I of The Electronic Literature Collection).

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