A Prayer for Dawn [Paperback]

Nathan Singer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 25, 2004

The lives of a dozen people in Cincinnati, Ohio are inextricably linked in this unrelenting first novel by Nathan Singer. A publicist who writes checks to charities to relieve a guilty conscience, a convict who rants in an underground 'zine, an artist with a controversial portfolio, a runaway engaging in 'petty terrorism', and an eight year old girl named Dawn at the center of it all watch as the world falls down around them.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Outrage with mainstream American culture fuels this crackling, darkly comic debut. Set largely in Cincinnati, Ohio, this "thrash novel" critiques and satirizes contemporary culture as it jumpily follows a motley crew of characters existing on society's fringes, where the sins of the mainstream are most powerfully felt. Members of the vivid cast include Caroline Powell, a world-weary publicist reduced to representing the likes of Joey Spitfire, the jailed creator of an underground zine called Psychobilly Freakout!; Jeff Mican, an artist whose works are so disturbing they induce vomiting; D'antre Philips, aka Daddy Molotov, multiple felon and author of a YA book called Princess Africa Jones; and Dalton Brackage, a gay, opium-smoking runaway who plans to help a group of American Indians blow up a national monument. At the novel's center is eight-year-old Dawn Mican, Jeff's daughter, who watches with a child's wide eyes the adult chaos around her. With a keenly developed sense of disillusionment and a real talent for capturing the vernacular, Singer leads readers on a raging, rollicking ride through the underbelly of American society, expressing not only genuine frustration with the immorality of the dominant culture, but also lamenting the absence of easy answers. As Dawn says, "It's really hard to know what's right. What if nothing is?" (July)
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Review

With A Prayer for Dawn, Nathan Singer announces himself as the hip new grandmaster of America’s literate underbelly. -- Mike Magnuson, author of Lummox and The Right Man for the Job

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Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Bleak House Books; aFirst Edition First Printing edition (July 25, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932557040
• ISBN-13: 978-1932557046
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,686,501 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A chance worth taking, December 29, 2004

By 

B. Tyree - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Prayer for Dawn (Paperback)

"A Prayer for Dawn" is a novel that takes chances, and luckily for Singer, they pay off. Some may view it as over-the-top, brash, or too non-PC, but that seems to be what he's going for. We live in an over-the-top world, and he takes full advantage of putting this on display.

On my first read, I noticed that many of his characters were similar. It was a bit bothersome, but upon another read, it was clearly intentional. They were meant to overlap, perhaps to show us that the lonely, fat, homosexual teenager is no different from the greedy, guilt-ridden middle-aged woman, or the poverty-stricken black man. It's equality at its finest. But even in their similarities, there are striking differences. The problem I have with most authors is that when they write for a character who is another gender, age, or sexual orientation, they pull it off terribly. Singer's portrayal of a quickly maturing 8 year old girl was convincing... not an easy task. Every character had unique quirks that made them believeable, no matter how outlandish they acted.

I applaud Singer for bringing things that disturb us to the forefront. Not only does he show us these unmentionables, but he forces us to look at them, holds our eyes open and yells "THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENS!" Some of the scenes are gruesome and hard to stomach, but again, that's the world we live in. One realization I had about these scenes is that the artwork that causes the characters to vomit is different in each reader's mind. It lets our most feared thoughts come into view.

This is an immensely good and I'd recommend it to anyone with an open mind. I haven't seen so much potential in a first novel in quite some time, and I look forward to more from a new talent.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A ballsy side-step for the novellic form, July 26, 2004

By 

Andrew Nienaber (Cincinnati, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Prayer for Dawn (Paperback)

"A Prayer For Dawn" is at once familiar and utterly new. In it you will see William S. Burroughs, Chuck Palahniuk, Jonathan Swift, that punk kid on your message boards you can't stand, your dirty unwashed uncle that that dragged away in handcuffs last month, and three quarters of the actual city of Cincinnati, Ohio. But though there is so much familiar about this novel, the form, the execution, and the sheer fury of it are something utterly new. Mixing first-person narrative, third-person omniscient, newspaper columns, slam poetry, and unchecked rebellion against anything that represents the status quo, Nathan Singer invents an art form all his own.

But style is only a fraction of the appeal of this book. "A Prayer For Dawn" is, to put it simply, one of the best novels I've read in years. I devoured the book in two days because I could not put it down. It was responsible for making me late getting back from my lunch break. I tried to stealthily read it while at work, but was stymied by the fact that every page made me either laugh uproariously, throw something against the wall, or cry. "Dawn" is crass, terrifying, unpatriotic, blasphemous, pornographic, possibly treasonous, and filled with bad grammar. It's also lyrical, truthful, stirring, hilarious, and bleakly optimistic. Singer knows people. He knows how they talk, how they act, what their darkest secrets are, and what lies under the patina of filth that the rest of the world sees. He knows their hearts and their motives and their conflicts. And he knows how to make them come alive on the page in a way that no other author has.

You need this book.

Now.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars fantastic, October 4, 2004

By 

embley - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Prayer for Dawn (Paperback)

this book was amazing. you must read it right now. everyone you know must read it. don't do one single thing more before reading this book.