Synopses & Reviews
"By deftly welding magic realism with social satire, Bakopoulos captures the dark side of the working-class dream."--
The New York Times Book ReviewThe year Michael Smolij turns seventeen, the men vanish from the blue-collar neighborhood outside Detroit where their fathers before them lived, raised families, and, in a more promising era, worked. One man props open the door to his shoe store and leaves a note. "I'm going to the moon," it reads. "I took the cash." Unable to leave the neighborhood where they have been abandoned, Michael and his friends stumble through their twenties, until the restlessness of the fathers blooms in them, threatening to carry them away.
"Please Don't Come Back From the Moon is a terrific novel--deeply original, smart, funny and heartbreaking . . . It's a story for all of us--sons and wives and daughters, too, of the missing, the disappeared, the men on the moon."--Buffalo News
"A graceful debut . . . Something about [Michael's] earnestness and the hopelessness of it nearly broke my heart."--Marta Salij, Detroit Free Press
Dean Bakopoulos, a former bookseller, has published fiction in Zoetrope and other journals and was named one of America's best new fiction writers by Virginia Quarterly in 2004. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
Review
"[W]hat could have been just another whiny, blaming, prototypical parents-they-mess-you-up-style novel is instead something far more haunting and interesting....By deftly welding magic realism with social satire, Bakopoulos captures the dark side of the working-class dream." Elissa Schappell, The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Both realistic and fantastic, heartfelt and objective, this first novel is recommended." Library Journal
Review
"[M]arvelous....A dazzling debut that's both earthy and anguished as hope battles despair, with heartbreak always just below the surface." Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
The summer Michael Smolij turns sixteen, his father disappears. One by one other men also vanish from the blue-collar neighborhood outside Detroit where their fathers before them had lived, raised families, and, in a more promising era, worked. One man props open the door to his shoe store and leaves a note. "I'm going to the moon," it reads. "I took the cash." The wives drink, brawl, and sleep around, gradually settling down to make new lives and shaking off the belief in an American dream that, like their husbands, has proven to be a thing of the past. Unable to leave the neighborhood their fathers abandoned, Michael and his friends stumble through their twenties until the restlessness of the fathers blooms in them, threatening to carry them away.
Synopsis
"Families, heartbreak, political and social comedy-there is little that Dean Bakopoulos doesn't grasp in an articulate, wittily perceptive, and soulful way, before he hands it back to the reader as literary art. Please Don't Come Back from the Moon is an original and brilliant first work of fiction." -Lorrie Moore
The summer Michael Smolij turns sixteen, his father disappears. One by one other men also vanish from the blue-collar neighborhood outside Detroit where their fathers before them had lived, raised families, and, in a more promising era, worked. One man props open the door to his shoe store and leaves a note. "I'm going to the moon," it reads. "I took the cash."
The wives drink, brawl, and sleep around, gradually settling down to make new lives and shaking off the belief in an American dream that, like their husbands, has proven to be a thing of the past. Unable to leave the neighborhood their fathers abandoned, Michael and his friends stumble through their twenties until the restlessness of the fathers blooms in them, threatening to carry them away.
This is a haunting, unforgettable novel for anyone who has ever been left longing.
Synopsis
The summer Michael Smolij turns sixteen, his father disappears. One by one other men also vanish from the blue-collar neighborhood outside Detroit where their fathers before them had lived, raised families, and, in a more promising era, worked. One man props open the door to his shoe store and leaves a note. "I'm going to the moon," it reads. "I took the cash."
The wives drink, brawl, and sleep around, gradually settling down to make new lives and shaking off the belief in an American dream that, like their husbands, has proven to be a thing of the past. Unable to leave the neighborhood their fathers abandoned, Michael and his friends stumble through their twenties until the restlessness of the fathers blooms in them, threatening to carry them away.
This is a haunting, unforgettable debut novel for anyone who has ever been left longing.
About the Author
Dean Bakopoulos is the author of the novel Please Dont Come Back from the Moon, a New York Times Notable Book, and the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He is on the faculty at Iowa State University and the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers.
Table of Contents
1 please don't come back from the moon................................1
2 some memories of my father..........................................27
3 summer, 1992........................................................33
4 the calming effect of jelly doughnuts...............................51
5 a newcomer's guide to ann arbor.....................................75
6 the boy with the backward chakra....................................79
7 capable of love.....................................................141
8 knights of labor....................................................145
9 the warning signs and symptoms of depression........................199
10 please don't come back from the moon (reprise).....................231