The Standard Grand

February 13, 2017
An Army trucker skips her third deployment to live in a halfway house for homeless veterans in this promising debut novel. After leaving her deadbeat civilian husband, specialist Antebellum Smith drives from the Ozarks to New York City, where, after several directionless weeks, she eventually takes up residence at “the Standard,” a sprawling upstate resort that hosts disadvantaged former military. Owned by Milton, a widowed Vietnam vet, the Standard’s location is quickly revealed to be coveted by IRJ Inc., a multinational corporation intent on transforming the property into a golf course. Alternating perspectives in each section, the symphonic novel dramatizes the lives of both the Standard’s residents and the employees of IRJ, creating an incisive parable for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Though the novel stalls a bit in the middle, its vibrant style and twisting plot—at one point a character is mauled by a cougar—make for an appropriately complex snapshot of America’s relationship with the men and women who defend it.

February 15, 2017
An abandoned Borscht Belt resort becomes an unlikely flashpoint in a tale of big business and PTSD.Nicorvo's lively, if at times overly busy, debut novel is an ensemble affair involving a land battle for the Standard Grande, a one-time Catskills getaway that Milton, a Vietnam vet, has turned into an alpaca farm/halfway house for vets with PTSD. That sounds like a good hiding place for Bellum, an Army deserter who can't stomach leaving for her third deployment to Afghanistan. But Milton has debts and late-stage cancer, and a conglomerate called IRJ, Inc. is pondering a takeover of the land for fracking purposes. A pair of informal spies are conducting advance surveillance: Evangelina, a spitfire health nut and family friend of IRJ's COO, and Ray, an Iraq vet who's split with Milton but lives in a yurt near the camp. It takes a while for Nicorvo to get all these chess pieces in their appropriate positions, and he's prone to overlong descriptions and gassy exchanges of military tough talk. But by midpoint, after a key character is mauled by a cougar near the Grande, the novel finds a solid groove, becoming a seamless blend of road-trip saga, love story, and critique of military contractors. Bellum is the best-drawn of the cast of characters, from her PTSD issues to her estranged, pill-slinging husband to her struggle to find solid footing as a deserter. (The novel suggests that those who turn themselves in are forgiven with relative speed.) As such, for all its convolutions, the novel is thematically a straightforward tale about finding a home: "Maybe the place to begin was to make one supportive relationship and go gradually upward and outward from there," Bellum thinks, but Nicorvo smartly renders the legal, corporate, and military forces that can stand in the way of so simple a goal. An ambitious novel that effectively braids corporate greed, outdoorsy grit, and human connection.

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February 1, 2017

Four characters converge on an abandoned Catskills, NY, resort in this ambitious novel set in 2012. Vietnam veteran Milton Wright, whose wife's family owned the property in its Borscht Belt heyday, has converted it into the Standard Grand, a halfway house for homeless vets. Antebellum Smith, an army specialist sleeping in Central Park rather than face a third deployment (or her husband), becomes Wright's last hope to inherit the organization after his imminent death. Meanwhile, a multinational corporation with its own designs on the land has dispatched both a mercenary to infiltrate the group and a Mesoamerican negotiator to buy Wright out. As these different protagonists (and several others, including a cougar) jockey for position within the narrative, it's often unclear what story is truly being told, though Bellum eventually emerges as the novel's center. In its portrait of a country exhausted by war and drenched in conspiracies, poet Nicorvo's (Deadbeat: Poems) fiction debut is the spiritual heir to Robert Stone's Vietnam-era classic Dog Soldiers. Its depiction of the breathtaking but treacherous New York State mountains is reminiscent of Smith Henderson's similarly vivid Fourth of July Creek. VERDICT Regardless of the parallels found in other authors' earlier works, in capturing the story of one deserter's search for love and redemption in an increasingly corporatized America, Nicorvo carves out something truly original. [See Prepub Alert, 10/10/16.]--Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L., NJ

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 15, 2016
Milt Wright, a widowed Vietnam vet, operates the Standard Grand, a once-thriving, luxurious Catskills resort, now a run-down sanctuary for homeless veterans suffering from PTSD. Dying from cancer, Milt is trying to keep the Grand afloat by maxing out his credit and finding a worthy successor. Enter Bellum Smith, gone AWOL just before her third deployment to Iraq and running from her abusive, ne'er-do-well husband. Milt takes her in, the only female at the Grand, and believes she may be the answer to his problems. Evangelina Canek represents a multinational corporation with designs on the land and hopes to save her job by cheaply acquiring the property and turning a quick profit, since the Grand is sitting on a massive shale formation. With sentences that flow like water down a mountain, Nicorvo's muscular and energetic prose will stun readers with its poignancy, while providing a punch to the solar plexus. Whip-smart dialogue and keen emotional insight bring a ragtag, damaged, but lovable cast of characters to life. Ultimately, it is Nicorvo's depiction of the deep psychological scars soldiers bring home that will keep this exceptional first novel in the hearts and minds of readers. Alongside Billy Lynn's Long, Halftime Walk (2012) and Yellow Birds (2012), The Standard Grand is an important and deeply human contribution to the national conversation.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)