Heart of the Old Country

South Brooklyn. Not the Brooklyn of Spike Lee or Matty Rich, but a counterpoint: those left behind in the white flight. Mike is 19 and at loose ends: driving for Big Lou's Car Service and trying to decide if he should stay in college or drift into the omnipresent arena of local organized crime. Mike's life is changed forever as he's forced to confront the grim realities of wiseguy justice and his own culpability in its execution. Echoing such urban low-life classics as Price's *The Wanderers* and Selby's *Last Exit*, this novel offers an honest, unromantic look at Brooklyn's underclass.

**Tim McLoughlin** was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, where he still resides. He is employed in the King's County Supreme Court.

**Critical praise for *Heart of the Old Country:***

"Set in the depths of working-class Brooklyn, this zippy first novel reads like an inspired cross between Richard Price's *Bloodbrothers* and Ross Macdonald's *The Chill*-part coming-of-age story, part thriller. Streetwise 19-year-old protagonist Mike spends his days driving for a car service and his nights attending college part-time. While trying to figure out which endeavor is more futile, he winds up on the periphery of a murder that will forever alter his destiny. Add to the mix Mike's marriage-minded neighborhood girlfriend, his borderline-wiseguy bookie dad, and a sexy and sophisticated coed temptress, and you've got all the ingredients for what may be a whole new genre: Call it mook noir. A-"-Tom Sinclair, *Entertainment Weekly*

"Tim McLoughlin writes about South Brooklyn with a fidelity to people and place reminiscent of James T. Farrell's *Studs Lonigan* and George Orwell's *Down and Out in Paris and London*. Among the achievements of his swiftly paced narrative is a cast of authentic and frequently complex characters whose voices reflect dreams and love as well as desperation to survive. No voice in this symphony of a novel is more impressive than that of Mr. McLoughlin, a young writer with a rare gift for realism and empathy."-Sidney Offit, author of *Memoir of the Bookie's Son*