The Lucky Boy [Kindle Edition]

Caroline Gerardo (Author)

Book Description

Seth McGrath is the son of a neurosurgeon and a pill popping debutante who send him away to be raised by his Grandmother. Living with Grandmother in inner-city Philadelphia of 1965, he finds ways to control his ADHD. When she dies he takes the bus back to his dysfunctional family. This sends Seth on a journey of crime. The boy runs away to find his one true love.

This is a dark bildungsroman about a teen who seeks answers through his experience. Transgressional or "transgressive" fiction with a chilling tale written in beats. This is a Twenty-first Century style of writing. A literary novel that looks inside the building of a mind.

A hypnotic story that will charm you through Seth's journey. Seth will sell drugs, arrange bum fights for hire, and worse. He seems to get away with murder and find a miracle as if some guardian angel is at his side.

The dirty charms of this novel are iridescent, describing crimes, violence, and antisocial behavior only to find true love.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

This is a fictional story of a boy with dysfunctional parents and his failure to connect with the world.
This story is laced with a few real events in my life:
1.       I lived in Radnor, PA as a child. The dogwood trees,
building of tree forts, and knowing bird calls were a part of my coming of age.
2.       A boy my family met in Philadelphia while we visited our
Grandmother did stalk my sister and follow us to California.
3.       A pivotal moment in my teen years was the death of a friend who
was electrocuted in a swimming pool. This story is not at all about him.
Near tragedy straightens Seth out from his path to hell,  his rescue, and salvation
represent an image that hangs in my mind all my life.
This brings me to ask questions of my readers:
What events that happen to us shape our  character?
Does Seth have a mental disorder or ADHD or can he control his destiny?
Do you believe we make our own luck?

From the Inside Flap

Seth spends his days spying on the boys who make forts, creating slingshots and observing bugs. His father beats him, his mother will not speak his name.  They send him away from their beautiful home to be raised by his paternal Grandmother in inner city Philadelphia. Grandmother helps him deal with his lack of self-control by teaching him about Catholic traditions, work ethic and spirituality.

Grandmother dies of a stroke in front of Seth, and this emotional loss leaves the boy in ashes. He seeks answers and friendship, but rather than making the right choices, Seth finds evil friends. Seth is both master and victim of his own craziness. He decides that if he just has enough money he can fix everything. Seth sells pharmaceuticals, injures a teammate on the swim team, and starts a business of arranging illegal street fights. Seth loses his moral center in the fights, crimes and the lack of love in his life. This puts in motion the adolescent on a runaway journey across the United States.

This is literary coming of age story that is both about salvation and self-formation. The narrative is postmodern, dystopian and disillusioned. There are moments of tender beauty and dark loneliness.
An anti-hero changes into a man who seeks his fortune rather than a life of crime. Seth's core begs to find answers to life's big questions.

   The Rules:

Stay in the circle until someone is unconscious.
Catholic children do not play with Protestants.
Play outside between the cars until dark.
Don't dash & dine a restaurant where you are known.
Do what you are told when you are told.
Step on a crack, and break 'Grandmother's' back.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 404 KB
• Print Length: 366 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: Mustard Seed Press; II edition (December 28, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0064FOCZO
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Not Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #428,282 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling read January 9, 2012

By Dave

Format:Kindle Edition

This novel is definitely a compelling read. Seth's journey is many things. Intriguing. At times, dark and depressing. At others, interesting, revelatory, and uplifting. Gerardo has a lovely writing style that is tight, terse; she doesn't waste words. From the onset, her teenage protagonist Seth is likeable--and you really feel for him in his circumstances with these unloving parents. This book is gripping and powerful. I highly recommend.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant April 4, 2012

By Wendy

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I just could not put this book down, i was totally engrossed in the story and I loved the Author's writing style. I just hoped the best for poor Seth..............I'm going to download another book now.

I recommend this book and want to know more about Seth.............

Great book and keep up the great writing.

Thanks Wendy

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Stay Out of Jail Card May 11, 2012

A Kid's Review

Format:Kindle Edition

Not luck - gambling, tossing a coin, or counting cards this is mystical luck. The force inside that drives us to change. An boy abused in childhood- Where a nanny smokes sage under his crib, the mother is high on pills and alcohol reading tea leaves and the father is a narcissistic neurosurgeon. Pops does a little sewing on the boy's face to cover up a beating.
This is not the All American Ward and June Cleaver or your neighbors you grew up to next door. Maybe behind all our doors dark secrets remain? Mom sets the house on fire and blames the child, Dad throws away the hand painted Father's Day gifts and substitutes someone else's photograph. It is emotional and both coldhearted as Seth is.
What do you expect from a boy who is disillusioned? He acts out.

There are depictions of Roman Catholicism, children creating costumes as the Pope, and Seth's Grandmother finding spiritual reality in bergamot, religious oils, candles and incense. Gerardo's writing about the Church is from the eyes of this boy. He prays for love and connection, as we all desire. Sometimes he begs.

There are bad secrets- violent street fights between victims paid and gambling their lives, a stupid lark to buy drugs, the stalking of a girl that he believes is his reason for living, accidents caused by bad choices.

Your anxiety calms with Gerardo's edgy prose- she describes a bug on the windshield as an emerald - that you don't feel the story is shadowy.

A story boys will read as adventure. A tale men find as cult fiction. A memory of the 1960's and 70's that is about not locking your front door or running away from home to find success.

More About the Author

Caroline AKA Caroline Gerardo Barbeau or C.G. as friends call her was born in Cincinnati Ohio.

She was raised in a large Catholic family, by a father with the wanderlust for the next physicist project and mother who was to become the support of the family as a school psychologist. Her parents moved five children to Louisiana, Ohio, Indiana, Boston, Pennsylvania and finally California.
She received her Bachelor of Arts Magna Cum Laude from Scripps College dual Major Art and Literature, and a Master of Fine Arts from Claremont Graduate University.

Caroline lives half time in Wyoming and California with her children.

Caroline has awards for her poetry and flash fiction.

She writes seven days a week and also enjoys photography, painting, gardening, gourmet cooking, and investing. Caroline's photographs and short films have recieved national attention.

Toxic Assets is a fictional story about the lavish lifestyles of the banking industry of the past told from inside. It is in the financial thriller genre, but is also literary thriller. Imagine you could change the tide of Wall Street and the mortgage meltdown if you were there. Fraud, romance and murder drive the story with an amazing female heroine at the center.

The Lucky Boy is a dark coming of age novel. It is Caroline's most recent publication. The Lucky Boy is a tale of a young man's journey from Pennsylvania to California. Seth runs away from a life of crime in a priviledged neighborhood. He arranges illegal fights, sells his mother's prescription drugs, and steals from those in his pathway. An event will pull him up by his boots to survive and change. The pace of the adventure story is fast and contemporary. The Lucky Boy is Trangressional Fiction.


Short stories: Greed, Vanity, Lust, Granny Magic, Willow Green,
Ghostwriter of other novels.
A Few Recent Publications:
Midwestern Gothic Spring 2012, One Stop Poetry 2011, The Potomac 2011, Scapegoat Review October 2011, Sleet Magazine Spring 2011, Negativesucks Magazine May 2011, and Narrative Magazine 2011
Blogger on Blogit since 1999 as: the_loanlady
Websites:
http://carolinegerardo.com/
http://carolinegerardo.blogspot.com/
http://cgbarbeau.blogspot.com/

Caroline is active on twitter as http://twitter.cgbarbeau/
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/carolinegerardo/
Instagram: http://instagram.com/carolinegerardo/

Caroline is working on her next novel, Eco-Terrorist a thriller about water rights set in Wyoming and a poetry/digital interactive project about The Last Willow Flycatcher