Bruiser

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 Chorão 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.

Ian Chorão inhabits a child's particular frame of mind with acute sensitivity and startling immediacy. In the disjunction between the limitations of a young boy's awareness and our adult understanding of the circumstances lies a special poetry that is its own powerful truth, and a reminder of the often uncertain, yet painfully acute impressions that adults can make on the hearts and minds of children. In language that is both spare and potently sincere, Chorão has created a character in Bruiser that we won't soon forget.

BRUISER is the story and the nickname of a nine-year-old boy living in a highly dysfunctional family in the 1970's (a bit like The Ice Storm on the Upper West Side) whose search for meaning and answers leads him to the open road and, eventually, the seeds of wisdom. Through the limitations of a young boy's awareness, we see the deteriorating marriage of his distant father and struggling mother, and the effects of their conflicts on Bruiser and his two older brothers. The disjunction between his literal misinterpretations, which often contain an emotional truth, and our adult understanding of the circumstances, creates the tension that runs throughout the novel.Bruiser has a kindred spirit in Darla, the prococious daughter in an already broken home who lives across the alleyway. As the tension mounts in each household, Darla conceives of a plan for the two of them that takes Bruiser on the most frightening and illuminating journey of his life, and one that will have tragic consequences.

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 Chorão 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.

Ian Chorão inhabits a child's particular frame of mind with acute sensitivity and startling immediacy. In the disjunction between the limitations of a young boy's awareness and our adult understanding of the circumstances lies a special poetry that is its own powerful truth, and a reminder of the often uncertain, yet painfully acute impressions that adults can make on the hearts and minds of children. In language that is both spare and potently sincere, Chorão has created a character in Bruiser that we won't soon forget.

Ian Chorand#227;o grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, like his main character. He lives in New York City with his wife and son.