Saint John of the Five Boroughs

August 3, 2009
Family turmoil, existential crisis and artistic yearnings fill this wide-ranging but slow-moving novel. Avery Walker is a college senior when she meets Grant Danko (Saint John), a 37-year-old struggling artist who persuades her to ditch school and come live with him in Brooklyn. But Grant's career is off track since a violent episode left him unable to write, and as Avery falls in with his successful friends, Grant turns to a nefarious uncle and an unlikely involvement with the mob. Meanwhile, Avery's widowed mother, Kate, enlists her brother-in-law Hank (who harbors feelings for Kate) and his wife, Lindsay (whose brother is in Iraq), to leave Virginia and accompany her to rescue Avery. Falco produces some excellent writing, especially when he's exploring Grant's complicated past, but these sharp and nuanced passages unfortunately expose the other, more pedestrian sections. Avery serves as the linchpin between the two plots: the Virginians lost in New York and Grant's struggling. But except in Avery's head, these two worlds never quite become a whole.

September 1, 2009
Avery Walker is a typical college student: partying, drinking, and trying to find herself in the world. At a party, she meets Grant Danko, a brooding, older performance artist from New York, who awakens her to a world outside of small-town college life. The two return to New York together, where Avery quickly adapts to city life, and Grant returns to work for his gangster uncle. Meanwhile, Averys mother, aunt, and uncle are caught up in a precarious relationship that they must confront when they venture to New York to retrieve Avery. Like his previous novel, Wolf Point (2005), Falcos latest examines the underbelly of love and relationships, but he also populates the story with a cast of diverse and unusual characters. As the plot twists and turns, readers dont know what to expect next, which can prove both exciting and baffling. A solid story that will find a broad range of readers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)