The Black Brook

By Tom Drury

Book Overview

An utterly original and compelling novel from "one of our living masters (McSweeney's), originally published in 1998 and now re-issued by Grove with a new introduction--a conversation between the author and Daniel Handler.

Paul Emmons has his faults--envy, lust, naivet , money laundering, and art forgery to name but a few. A fallen accountant and scamster, Emmons and wife Mary are exiled abroad, though they enjoy frequent and inadvisable returns to New England, the region of his crimes, to check in on the property they own but cannot claim.

With this, the stage is set for Drury's darkly comic novel of love, death, guilt, redemption, and the various forms of clam chowder. Through a series of flashbacks and bizarre encounters, we see Paul's life as a college student in Quebec; his unfortunate professional beginnings in Rhode Island as business associate of Carlo Record, the one-armed president of the fraudulent company "New England Amusements"; and his stint as an investigative journalist.

As time passes, Paul is tracked down by Carlo's cronies--Ashtray Bob, Line-Item Vito, and Hatpin Henry--who try to coerce Paul into stealing the infamous John Singer Sargant painting "The Black Brook" from the Tate gallery in London. Instead, Paul begs Mary, a painter, to reproduce the Sargant, in an attempt to outwit Carlo and his henchmen; a plot that produces comic consequences.

Through it all Paul strives to find and accomplish his mission in life, and myriad characters contrive to tell their stories--of broken promises, nightmarish evenings, and identities lost and found in this "irresistibly droll portrayal of an All-American liar, loser, and innocent" (Kirkus).

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802123066
• ISBN13: 9780802123060
• Release Date: March 2015
• Publisher: Grove Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

All his books are great

Read The Black Brook. Drury is funny and poignant. The people are a little off the beaten track but that's what makes this a book to be read.

His style is his salvation

This book is somewhat shapeless, strewing red herrings as it wanders. The author definitely gives the impression of a writer who sits down at his desk each day with no firm direction. However, if you are a reader for whom the destination is less important than the journey, there is much here to interest you. The protagonist seems to be searching for something to cure his malaise, and this quest takes him from Belgium to small town New England to Scotland, well-wrought descriptively. Just don't expect a point to it all.

I can't define Drury's writing but I love him.

I don't think it ruins anything to mention that the title comes from a painting of a girl's thoughts. How does Tom Drury think about so much and with such wit? As an experiment before writing this review I flipped the book open randomly at several points. Just as I thought, there was a wonderful surprise to be savored on every page. There are descriptions, scenes and sentences I wanted to bring home and turn into house pets. The fact that he manages to weave a plot around all this delicious satirical writing is amazing. I can't wait for his next book since I've read all three now.

Very nice

A fine stylist who has ALMOST found his voice...a good storyteller, but sometimes too much in love with his own well-chosen words. Sometimes reads like Don DeLillo lite. Still, you won't regret reading this fine book.

Highly atmospheric, somewhat meandering, but fascinating.

I kept thinking that this is the kind of novel Paul Auster would write if Auster wrote more mainstream books. (It especially reminded me of Leviathan, due maybe to locale.)Though he depends less on coincidence than Auster does, Drury is still pretty far from the mainstream with this slow but beautifully written "mystery." That is, it seems like it should be a mystery, but it doesn't read as if there's any rush to find out what's at the bottom of the odd circumstances surrounding Paul Emmons, formerly Paul Nash, who is in the witness protection program for ratting on the mob. It's more of a character study. Category-defying. The prose is sharp and fresh.