Heart of the Old Country - Softcover

"Tim McLoughlin writes about South Brooklyn with a fidelity to people and place reminiscent of James T Farrell's Studs Lonigan and George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London. Among the achievements of this swiftly paced narrative is a cast of frequently complex characters whose voices reflect dreams and love as well as desperation to survive . . . Mr McLoughlin is a young writer with a rare gift for realism and empathy" (Sidney Offit, author of Memoir of a Bookie's Son)

"Heart of the Old Country is a wise and tender first novel . . . McLoughlin shows a love for humanity so deep it might equal Dostoevsky's. He is a master storyteller in the tradition of such great New York City writers as Hubert Selby Jr and Richard Price. I can't wait for his second book." (Kaylie Jones, author of A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries)

An Honest And Hard-Hitting Look At Brooklyn's Underclass; Comparable in style to Hubert Price's Last Exit to Brooklyn and Richard Price's The Wanderers; 19 year-old Mike is at a loose end: driving a beat-up Buick for Big Lou's Car Service and trying to decide whether he should remain a college student, marry his high school girlfriend, work full-time, or drift into the lucrative and omnipresent arena of local organised crime. Enter Nicky Shades, schoolyard hero turned junkie, just out of rehab and also driving for Lou. Nicky and Mike rekindle their uneven friendship as Nicky attempts the difficult path of going clean. But old habits, especially Nicky's are hard to break. One night, stoned to the gills, Nicky robs a social club where the local don operates. Mike's life is changed forever as he's forced to confront the grim realities of wiseguy justice and his own culpability in its execution. Although his father has spent his life walking the line between respectability and old loyalties as a small-time bookmaker, Mike knows that his own options are more extreme. He is either passing through this world or he will allow himself to be defined by it.