Customer Reviews

Brendan Wolf

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is not at all what I expected after Malloy's first book, the very funny coming-of-ager, "The Year of Ice." At first I was disappointed and a bit put off, but I quickly got swept up in the story. The setting is contemporary and the protagonist is older, and the story much more bleak than The Year of Ice, but the writing is amazing and there are several very funny sections, not the least of which is Brendan trying to keep track of his various identities and aliases, which keep multiplying throughout the book. While Brendan seems to be passive and clinically-depressed - which makes him ripe for manipulation, and manipulated he is - he is also oddly endearing. The writing itself is better than The Year of Ice but the story is exigent and probably not for everyone. At the end of the day I fell in love with Brendan, as frustrating, self-destructive and occasionally unsympathetic as he may be. If you want a story about a sympathetic hottie, you'll be disappointed, but if you like challenging books that are haunting and beautifully written, I can highly recommend this one.

Brendan Wolf is a decent, very naive 35-year old gay man who is on a life long struggle to overcome a difficult childhood of parental abandonment, foster homes and unfeeling adoptive parents. When Brendan reconnects with an older brother serving time in jail his life gets worse, something that would seem impossible. The rest of the novel concerns Brendan's struggle to make a family with the brother and sister-in-law.

The author, Brian Malloy, makes Brendan into a person worth caring about, despite the bleak circumstances. I really liked this novel, and am surprised it hasn't receive more attention. It's much better that "Fellow Travelers," another recent novel with a gay theme. Any description of "Brendan Wolf" makes the book sound sad and uninviting; actually it is a wonderfully rich novel.

Brendan is a 35 year old gay man who grew up in an emotionally distant foster home, preoccupied with books about adventurous souls, who is dissatified with his life and his lack of progress in a series of dead-end low-paying jobs. When his brother Ian (who recently got out of prison for embezzling funds from senior citizens) and Ian's girlfriend offers to let him in a plot to rob money donated to a right-wing Christian lobbying organization, it appeals to Brendan on many levels, and he signs on to infiltrate the group as a trusted volunteer, which would put him in a position to handle the donations that could be stolen. While waiting for the scam to go down, he looks up Marvin, an older gay man previously partnered with a cellmate of Ian's, but rejects the man's sexual advances, only to end up posing as the former boyfriend and becoming his caregiver after Marvin suffers a stroke. Complicating his life further, Brendan hits it off with Sean, a gay neighbor of Marvin's with whom he can see the growth of a loving relationship, but which is doomed from the start because of the lies and deceptions Brendan used to set up the theft.

In a novel very different from his earlier "The Year of Ice," Malloy portrays the multi-layered and interesting complexities of a character who is far from a simple opportunist. He also makes subtle comments about what our society produces, in the guises of Marvin, Brendan's brother Ian and other supporting characters. Extremely well-written and unflinchingly gritty in its portrayals, with occasional bursts of wit and pathos, this is perhaps not an easy novel to read, but well worth the effort.

Never before have I so enjoyed a book about a bunch of losers. Just about every character in this story is a loser, but author Brian Malloy makes them sympathetic if not quite lovable losers. The character in the title role also plays the parts of Frankie, Pierre and Paul, not to mention his given name (which is not Brendan). Brendan gets recruited by his ex-con brother and the brother's wife to rip off charitable contributions to the Walk for the Unborn. In order to get access to the cash, Brendan has to earn trust by serving as a volunteer at the charity. Meanwhile, Brendan squirrels his way into old, lecherous Marv's house, but pays a heavy price in care-giving. Malloy makes the story at times hilarious and at times depressing. Along the way he takes a poke at the fanatics of the anti-abortion movement. It's been described as a "noir" novel because nothing good happens to any of the losers, but, in the end, it is the readers who win.

Brian Malloy's second novel BRENDAN WOLF is quite a departure from his THE YEAR OF ICE. Wolf is a thirty-five-year-old who cannot support himself on minimum wage jobs. A lover of books, he is fascinated by INTO THE WILD, the true story of Christopyher Johnson McCandless aka Alexander Supertramp who perished in the Alaskan wilderness. On some level he identifies with McCandless for he has changed his name to Brendan Wolf (he uses at least two other aliases in the novel as well). He is a true reading junky, however, and will read VALLEY OF THE DOLLS as quickly as DOCTOR ZHIVAGO.

Brendan, along with his two brothers Ian and Steven, was taken from his parents as youngsters (his parents were criminals), lived in several foster homes, was adopted as a teenager and eventually left his adoptive parents. A college dropout, he is ripe for the plan that his convict brother Ian and his wife Cynthia come up with; they are going to steal large sums of cash that a pro-life group, "Babies First" will get at a rally. Brendan infiltrates the group-- his story to the sympathetic women is that he has recently lost his wife Laura and wants to join the group in her memory. Brendan lives with the elderly Marv, someone whom he learns about through Ian, who learned about him from Frankie, Marv's younger "kept" boyfriend, who is in prison with Ian for a DUI. Brendan also meets Sean, who becomes his boyfriend, and believes that his name is Pierre Bezukhov, a character from Tolstoy's WAR AND PEACE, which seems preposterous until you ask yourself how many adults in the U. S. have read the novel. Although some of what happens in this novel is predictable, the suspense is palpable; and the characters are real, including the women in the pro-life group who are nuanced and not all cut from the same cloth.

The critics are calling this book a "noir novel." On that level it certainly works; Malloy's spare prose is appropriate for the subject matter. BRENDAN WOLF compares favorably with such crime novels as Michael Collins' THE KEEPERS OF TRUTH and, if done well, would make a fine movie.

I had recently come across Brian Malloy's debut, The Year of Ice: A Novel, with which I fell in love. I consider it the best gay coming-of-age novel I've ever read. The character of Kevin Doyle was so convincing and refreshingly flawed. He was at instances sweet and sensitive, other times angry and mean, always extremely funny. The writing was so engaging, the prose vivid and muscular, almost tangible. But nothing in Malloy's debut could have prepared me for the protagonist in his follow-up novel.

Brendan Wolf is a remarkable piece of storytelling. I've read reviews describing him as a loser and a disgusting individual but feel such labels are off base. The astonishing thing that the author does is create a character that continually makes calamitous decisions, yet while many readers (including myself) may silently curse and plead with him not to take many of the paths he chooses, deep down we can understand why he might act as he does. Through reminiscences peppered throughout the narrative, we learn much of his damaging history. Ridiculously poor parental examples, abandonment, cruel 'therapy' and even a macabre discovery of a co-worker haunt his dreams, fracturing this poor man into pieces. While this history is no excuse for his behavior, it explains much of how his brain functions. Brendan is not a sociopath. He is quite kind and compassionate in many ways, though I admit it's sometimes hard to see it on the surface. He is often far too clever and quick-thinking for his own good. This combined with a flash-flood temper and near perpetual, underlying heartache makes for a disastrous cocktail.

Though it may sound like gloomy read, it really isn't. Brendan is a rich, wonderfully realized character. He is, despite his many flaws, oddly sexy and endearing, someone worth rooting for. If only because we realize that were our own history and circumstances different, and had we taken the wrong path at certain moments in our lives, perhaps we too could be in a similar predicament as his. Perhaps there a tiny bit of Brendan Wolf in each of us.

Brendan, a man branded by his childhood, who cannot put his life order and who is desperately searching for his identity, not realising that happiness is just around the corner. But Brendan's longing for family ties is stronger than anything, even when in his case it's a dead end street. Beautifully and extremely well written, impressive. And Brendan's love for books and reading (and dogs) is heartwarming.

I'm late to the party for this, the second novel from Brian Malloy -- and I'm glad I'm late in a way. His latest book was just released, and I can go right from this novel into a frothier, young adult book.

BRENDAN WOLF is everything people below have said -- fascinating, sad, tragic, uplifting and completely unique. I would have to compare him closest to Tom Ripley from Patricia Highsmith's famed RIPLEY series. While you may not agree with every decision he makes (or perhaps ANY decision he makes), you can't help but root for him.

It's well-written, it's fast-paced, it's nerve-wracking -- and there is a heart in there in a way most novels don't bother acknowledging.

While some have chastised Malloy for not having written something in line with A YEAR OF ICE (another five-star for me), I find it thrilling to know that the author can tell many stories from many different perspectives -- and I look forward to whatever is next.

I was not familiar with this author and picked this book up as an afterthought. Brendan Wolf is both humorous and touching as we learn of Brendan's difficulty in becoming the man he wants to be, especially after he hooks up with his criminal brother and sister in law. I especially liked the scenes with the elder man who Brendan takes hostage in the old man's house, and the sense of purpose Brendan accidently discovers during his hostage taking.

The scenes with the Right to Life fundamentalists are hysterical and frightning, and his absurd fascination with Alexander Supertramp, the "Into the Wild" tragic character echoes how depressed this guy really was. This book to me was a real find!

One of the more terrifying and fascinating images to remain so long after the tragedy of 9/11 is the iconic image of the falling man captured in his jump to escape the devastation of the Twin Towers during the terrorist attack in New York City. As Sean, the love interest in the life of the book's title character tries to explain to Brendan Wolf, 'I meant no matter how much we believe our lives are in order, it's an illusion. Nobody knows for sure who the Falling Man is, but he was in the Tower on that day because it was part of the order of his life. And then, from out of nowhere, a bunch of religious fanatics fly a plane into his building, and finally he's forced to make a choice - what to do when the life you knew is taken from you? .....He didn't want to suffocate or have a ceiling drop on his head. Yeah, he was a victim, but he took control of his last moments, they all did, all the jumpers. They were left with just a few minutes to decide how their lives would end. I admire them, their courage.' Brian Malloy has succeeded in creating a story that despite its at times meandering subplots ultimately results in creating a character, a set of characters, that become indelible in our memory. It is a powerful story, a book filled with moments both hilarious and fantastical, as well as serious examinations of 21st century man.

Brendan Wolf is a 35-year-old lost soul, a lad who with his brothers Ian and Steven was deserted by his criminal parents, placed in foster homes and eventually adopted by people who also turned out to be a much the losers as his parents. 'Brendan Wolf' is not his real name (he was born Victor Hall) but instead is a make-believe name in many ways reflecting his obsession with the character from the Jon Krakauer memoir 'In the Wild' - Alexander Supertramp. Brendan goes from meaningless job to meaningless job in Minneapolis, unconnected to anyone since his breakup with his former lover Jeff. His brother Ian is incarcerated in Rush City, a jail, and during a visit to try to reconnect with his true family, Ian recommends Brendan connect with a old obese man Marv whose 'houseboy' Frankie is Ian's current partner in Rush City. Desperate for money and a roof over his head, Brendan goes to Marv's mansion and there the changes in his life begin. How Brendan copes with Marv, becoming involved in a near tragedy that turns his thinking around to become the caretaker of a man who initially disgusted him, how he tries to align with Ian once released form Rush City and becomes involved with Ian and his wife Cynthia's fraudulent scheme involving an anti-abortion group, and how he meets Sean, a lonely but comfortably out gay man and tastes some moments of normalcy, only to make wrong decisions that lead to his compounded failures is a mere outline of this book's treasures. Malloy's writing style keeps the reader involved with every page, even through episodes that at times seem to threaten the momentum of the story, leading to the somewhat surprisingly bleak ending. It is a work of an author unafraid to tell truths instead of create happy-ever-after endings: the result is an enormously engaging story as well as a fine critique of just where we are today. Highly recommended! Grady Harp, November 09