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EXOTIC MUSIC OF THE BELLY DANCER
By: Brian Sweany
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas meets Leave It to Beaver
The Writer's Coffee Shop
May 2013
On Sale: April 25, 2013
Featuring: Laura Elliot; Hank Fitzpatrick; Beth Burke
300 pages
ISBN: 1612131514
EAN: 9781612131511
Kindle: B00CHQOYUM
Trade Size / e-Book
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Contemporary | Fiction Family Life
Hank Fitzpatrick's life is what you might expect from a manchild stumbling his way through and beyond adolescence in the late 1980s in small town Indiana: hypersexual, drunk, stoned, prone to fits of spontaneous masturbation, occasionally Catholic, and accidentally well–intentioned. Caught in the crossfire of raging hormones, bad decisions and family tragedy, Hank is just a boy not yet ready to be a man. His father casts an impossibly perfect shadow over his entire life. His mother is a gimlet–drinking, pill–popping flake. His best friend stares down adversity with a half–gallon of bourbon and a bottle of cough syrup. His girlfriend is destined to either break his heart or save his life. And his doting godfather lingers in the shadows as Hank's greatest teacher. Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer speaks to that vast swath of nostalgic, pop–fueled Gen X and Gen Y adults who migrated from John Hughes in the 80s to the reality TV voyeurism of the new millennium. These readers want to see the homecoming king fall flat on his face, implode in spectacular fashion, dust himself off, then do it all over again. What's more, these readers now have children—sons and daughters who inexplicably think Reagan was cool, buy crimping irons, and wear popped–collar Izods and off–the–shoulder sweatshirts. Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer is more than just an homage to the last uninhibited pre–AIDS, pre–9/11, pre–Facebook generation. It's a comedy. It's a tragedy. It's a love story. It's a subversive yet empathetic, warts–and–all roman à clef rooted in real–life that kids will read behind their parents' backs. And if somewhere along the way we can all share in the redemptive power of a belly dancer's love...well, that's okay too.
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