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Title: August and Then Some
Subtitle: A Novel
Author: David Prete
Narrator: Aaron Landon
Format: Unabridged
Length: 7 hrs and 23 mins
Language: English
Release date: 06-04-13
Publisher: Audible Studios
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher's Summary:
Twisted bonds between a father and his children lead to revenge and a desperate hope for redemption and forgiveness.
In the heat of August, Jake Terri Savage ("JT"), his little sister Danielle, and his bone-headed best friend, Nokey (nicknamed after "gnocchi"), try to steal JTs fathers beloved 1965 Shelby Cobra. Their reasons are noble; the consequences,devastating.
JTs abusive dads idea of a 12th birthday gift is getting his son involved in a barroom brawl. Nokeys dad thinks he has potatoes for brains. Both sons live out their fathers stunted visions in a way that brings down a terrible judgment on them all - leaving JT hauling rocks for punishment while he staves off panic attacks and nightmares about his sister and her terrible half-known secret.
A Dominican teenage girl with little hope for her own future gives JT a second chance to save someone, including himself. Throughout, David Pretes vivid sense of atmosphere, tight plotting, and crackling dialogue give the dysfunctional family story a new lease on life.
Members Reviews:
Excellent and Moving Book
This book transports you to New York and puts you right into a real New York family with all the conflict many families experiences. Very interesting and allows you to feel like a New Yorker. Great language. Highly recommend.
Maybe he will get better as a writer
It's OK...Maybe he will get better as a writer.....
Insightful and thought-provoking
This is very much a New York City novel, scarcely straying from the strip of land bounded by the Hudson, Bronx and East Rivers; and the timing is fairly recent, definitely this century. Jake Savage, aged 18, is from Yonkers, but he rents a room in an apartment block close to Tompkins Square Park in the East Village. Location is important to the novel, which contains many careful descriptions of places, journeys within the area, and buildings. Viewing his apartment building from the outside, noting the masonry, woodwork and ornamental railings, Jake observes "If whoever built this place was trying to make it look like a place someone could be happy, I think they succeeded - problem is we've stopped noticing."
He isn't happy; he is estranged from his family and has been living rough. He has a job, hauling rocks in the summer heat as part of a landscaping project, but except that his workmate has given him a nickname he doesn't like that is the happiest part of his life. The room he rents is far from satisfactory; a neighbor, Ralphie, and Ralphie's niece Stephanie provide a touch of humanity, but Stephanie and her boyfriend, especially the boyfriend, are also a source of tension.
Gradually, we discover the origin of Jake's problem with his family. He blames his parents, his father especially, but it soon becomes clear that Jake himself is a far from easy person, always likely to aggravate a confrontational situation. The narrative follows his actions through the month of August, taking breaks to fill us in on the climactic events of the previous summer. There are also short sections dealing with significant parts of his childhood, right back to the homecoming from maternity hospital of his beloved sister Danielle.
Well into the book, we are told that Jake is white and that Stephanie has relations in the Dominican Republic, but the story is not about race and is essentially color blind.
