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A small-time art forger runs afoul of the New England mob in this comic crime novel from the author of The End of Vandalism: “One of our living masters” (McSweeney’s).
Paul Emmons has his faults—envy, lust, naiveté, money laundering, and art forgery to name a few. A fallen accountant and scamster, Emmons and his wife, Mary, are exiled abroad, though they enjoy inadvisable returns to New England to check on the property they own but cannot claim.
Paul’s unfortunate association with Carlo Record, president of the fraudulent company New England Amusements, was always destined to get him into trouble. When Carlo and his cronies—Ashtray Bob, Line-Item Vito, and Hatpin Henry—try to coerce Paul into stealing the John Singer Sargent painting “The Black Brook” from the Tate gallery in London, Paul and Mary hatch a plan to trick the tricksters . . .
Through it all, Paul searches for his true mission in life in this “irresistibly droll portrayal of an All-American liar, loser, and innocent” (Kirkus Reviews).
This Grove edition features a new introduction in the form of a conversation between Drury and Daniel Handler.
“I’d say Drury was good and now he’s great, even revolutionary. The genius of The Black Brook is that in the current of banalities that engage us all, he finds compelling mystery. My hat is off to this superb writer.”—Barry Hannah
“A trip and a treat.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Tom Drury ranks right up there with fellow Connecticut writer Robert Stone when it comes to depicting the futility of American wanderlust.”—Boston Herald
“Every page yields wonderful surprises—of invention, of insight, of language.”—Richard Russo
Tom Drury is the author of five previous novels, including Pacific, long-listed for the National Book Award, and The End of Vandalism, named one of the best books of the past 45 years by GQ Magazine in 2002. His short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harper’s, and A Public Space, and he has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Academy in Berlin, and MacDowell. He lives in Iowa City.