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Book Reviewed by:By turns humorous and heartbreaking, personal and sweeping, familiar and extraordinary, Brian Strause's first novel takes readers on an unforgettable emotional journey into America's heartland.
In this disarming debut, Brian Strause has written a vastly entertaining novel
about an American family transfixed by a series of mysterious events. From a
comfortable suburb of Columbus, Ohio, emerges a story of rebellion, faith and
hope, bridging the cultural gap between those who believe in miracles and those
who wish they could.
Monroe Anderson - as quiet on the outside as he is sardonic and alive on the
inside - has spent most of his eighteen years trying to fly beneath the radar.
If he can remain invisible, he believes, his sadistic older brother, a rising
golf star, might not torment him, his workaholic father, a renowned litigator,
might not notice him long enough to be disappointed, and his mother might not
have to struggle so hard to find a hopeful word. The only people who glimpse the
real Monroe are his girlfriend, Emily, and his eleven-year-old sister, Annika.
On the night of his senior prom, Monroe finds Annika floating facedown in the
family pool. He dives in and rescues her, but not quickly enough to prevent her
from slipping into a coma. As the family copes with this crisis, Monroe's mother
turns to religion, his father turns to liquor, and Monroe himself must decide
what's worth believing in, what's worth fighting for, and, finally, who he wants
to be.
By turns humorous and heartbreaking, personal and sweeping, familiar and
extraordinary, Brian Strause's mesmerizing novel takes readers on an
unforgettable emotional journey into America's heartland.
Chapter 1
There's a bow tied around my neck and I'm dying for a smoke.
Tonight's the senior prom and there's no way I'm going to get through this
ordeal sober. I wouldn't be going at all, but I promised my girlfriend, Emily.
She said the prom only happens once in your life and I'd regret it if I blew the
whole thing off. "Humor me," she said. On the off chance she's right,
I agreed to take her—a decision I now regret.
I figure if I catch a buzz before I pick her up, maybe the night won't be a
total disaster. Emily always says she can't stand being around stoners, but then
again she can never tell when I'm stoned.
Besides, there's no use complaining now. I have the whole thing lined up—the
black tux, the white limo, the red corsage. I even rented a room at the Hyatt.
It's something you're supposed to do, I guess. It's not like I think some cheesy
hotel room will make Emily want to sleep ...
Strause's first novel is fast gathering momentum as one of the 'it' books for 2005. With its teenage protagonist, Maybe A Miracle has the potential to appeal to readers from the older teens through to adults, both men and women; and with subject matter that runs the gauntlet of hot topic subjects, including religion and politics, this is also a shoe-in for book clubs who enjoy a little contention in their reading matter.....continued
Full Review
(127 words)
(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean and The Breakdown Lane
As tender as a slow dance, as rebellious as a hip-hop song.... Brian Strause
manages to convince the reader that mere human life is the greatest sin and
salvation--with room for belief, betrayal, the beneficence of baseball, folly,
and forgiveness. Madison Smartt Bell, author of The Stone That the Builder Refused
Brian Strause's Maybe A Miracle starts out somewhere not far from J.D.
Salinger's rye field, but it ends up in a new and strange and marvelous place
where only this extraordinary first novelist could take it.Brian Strause was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, and now lives in Silver
Lake, California. In the interview, which you can read in full at
BookBrowse, he answers a number of questions including the inevitable one asked
of first time authors - whether Maybe A Miracle is based on his own
experiences. To which he replies:
"They say to write what you know, but unfortunately the life I've lived isn't
exactly chock-full of drama. And indeed, I grew up in Columbus on an idyllic
street in a storybook neighborhood. But it's not like Blue Velvet,
where it was sordid once you start peeling back the layers. It was all quite
painfully normal. Which is all to say, my own family – while incredibly
...
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It is among the commonplaces of education that we often first cut off the living root and then try to replace its ...
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