The Black Brook

By Tom Drury

Book Overview

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, naivet eacute;, 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802123066
• ISBN13: 9780802123060
• Release Date: August 1970
• Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Incorporated
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 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.