Heart of the Old Country by Tim McLoughlin Akashic Books, 2001 216 pp. This book is available from the Akashic Books website, and also from Amazon.com. We encourage you to purchase it directly from the publisher as they get to keep more of the money that way.

The narrator, Mike, is a twenty year-old Italian American. Mike's mother is dead; he lives with his dad, though they often go a few days without seeing each other. Mike's girlfriend, Gina, has their life planned out: they'll marry, settle down in the apartment above her mother's place and begin making babies immediately (the other details just aren't important to her). To make ends meet, Mike drives for the car service (basically an unlicensed taxi) operated by the brother of a local mob boss. In short, he's saddled with a dead-end job and a dead-end relationship, though as the book begins he's only just figuring that out.

Though he's full of swagger and bravado, and is ultimately as naive about the workings of the world as any twenty year-old, Mike is not a dumb kid. Mike's in college, and when he leaves the neighborhood confines to go to class, we see a very different guy. When he's not playing dumb for friends and acquaintances, Mike is far more than a thuggish Tony Manero clone. When Mike begins a halting flirtation with fellow student (and non-Italian) Kathy Popovich, we're startled by his conversational ability. Outside his home environment, Mike is startlingly intelligent and sophisticated, though clearly still a product of "neighborhood" values. His values see-saw between matter-of-fact Old Country racism and sexism and more enlightened attitudes.

While it's difficult to spot a dramatic through-line 'til you've finished the book, Heart of the Old Country's pivotal moment comes roughly a third of the way in, when one of Mike's friends is killed. We're not talking car crash or factory accident -- it's a disciplinary action, and Mike is peripherally involved. It's not long before Mike finds himself with a better-paying, more overtly mob-connected courier job, and it's this job that places Mike at a crossroads. Will he follow the path of countless "neighborhood guys" before him and become some sort of goombah, trapped by tradition and habit, or will he get out? In the end, the aftermath of a disastrous courier run shows Mike who his friends are and reinforces family bonds, while also clearing away his life's dead wood. There are no far-reaching, earth-shaking revelations in the book's final act, but Mike makes a number of life-changing decisions. He's left with a blank slate, having experienced several (though he'd never use the phrase) personal epiphanies.

McLoughlin makes Mike a strong, surprisingly likeable character, but he doesn't romanticize him. Mike drinks a lot. He uses drugs. He treats Gina badly. But beneath these flaws exists a strong sense of justice and unflagging loyalty. Mike might not be the greatest human being on the face of the earth, but he's not a villain. There's the sense that something very worthwhile will be squandered if Mike doesn't someday make a break from the guys who hang around on streetcorners, escaping neighborhood politics for the world at large.

The supporting characters are also well sketched. Mike's father proves to be a stronger man than his son believes; though initially portrayed as lazy and unambitious, he turns out to be a shrewd ally -- and, when the chips are down, the sort of Dad any son would want. Gina and Kathy are equally interesting. While Mike has clearly outgrown Gina, she's not necessarily the wrong woman for him, and it's obvious that his relationship with Kathy Popovich will be rocky. As Mike's physical and metaphorical escape from his neighborhood, Kathy is a change rather than a solution.

The city and Mike's neighborhood, on the other hand, are not extensively detailed. Mike wastes few words describing the places and people he sees every day; he is at his most observant in the midst of new experiences. Kathy Popovich's apartment building is described at length, but we know little about Mike's own home until the plot itself demands a measure of description. It's unclear whether this is technique or oversight, but as anyone who watches television or movies probably has a passable mental picture of South Brooklyn, the blanks are filled by the reader's imagination.

McLoughlin avoids setting his story within a particular time frame. While there are suggestions that the book takes place during the late eighties or early nineties, they seem deliberately vague. Perhaps it isn't deliberate, but it gives the book a timeless quality. There's a feeling that, to some extent at least, time has stopped in Mike's neighborhood. It makes sense; after all, the guy who delivers the line that gives the book its title -- a yuppie friend of Gina's brother Leo -- isn't talking about Italy. He's referring to Bensonhurst.

I was truly surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. I was hooked within a few pages -- it's compelling stuff. I need to stress, though, that this isn't some kind of Mafia story; there's no doubt that the organized crime stuff exists on the periphery of the narrative, but Heart of the Old Country is really about relationships and loyalties. I don't know how much of the story is drawn from McLoughlin's own experience, but he certainly paints a vivid picture. Some day it'll make a great indie film.

-- George Zahora