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Bruce Post writes like a seventeen year-old talks—which in this instance is pitch perfect because a teenage boy just happens to be the principle narrator of this nifty bit of noir. He also writes like a teenage girl and a disgusting child abuser—who both lend their perspectives to this story of kids not only on the run from murder and mayhem, but also from suffocating small town lives that threaten to stunt their psyches and turn their futures into a deadening replay of their parents' mistakes.
Bristol, Connecticut is long past its prime when Post’s tale begins. Post paints a vivid picture of a once thriving town now barely existing on the remnants of past manufacturing glory. Factories and plants have become ghostly playgrounds for disaffected youth trapped in a cycle of poverty that promises to do nothing but continue. Within this setting, Junior finds his father dead, murdered perhaps, and in this ultimate end he sees a possible new beginning for himself and his best friend, Courtney. Taking what he believes his father wanted him to have, and perhaps that which got his father killed, he scoops up Courtney and they begin an ill-advised, ill-planned, and even more ill-fated runaway.
In addition to constructing a credible and suspenseful plot, Post lays bare the raw nerve endings of his central characters as they careen from one harrowing situation to the next. His dialogue bespeaks his skill and training as a playwright and teacher. It stings with the slap of truth. This is one of those rare gems one occasionally finds if one is lucky—a little novel that packs a big punch.
RECOMMENDED by the US Review