Troublemaker [Hardcover]

Brian Pera (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 11, 2000

Earl, a 20-something Southern kid, is adrift in life. After his father's death, his mother - who can no longer deal with him - sends him to live with his grandmother in Memphis. His grandmother, getting senile and paranoid, turns him out on the streets of Memphis and from there his path leads him to New York City. In New York, Earl works as a hustler, then as a kept boy, but ultimately fails at both. Addicted and lost, he ends up on a train back to Omaha, where his mother keeps her door closed against him. With nowhere else to go, Earl ends up walking the grounds of a local carnival where he meets Red, an enigmatic 20-something man to whom Earl tries to attach himself, only to have Red slip away. Now the obsession with Red is the only thing driving him and Earl takes off to find this man whom he barely knows.

As the narrative moves backward and forwards in time, Troublemaker slowly reveals the truth about Earl, his past, his family, and his driving obsession with Red. Moving, compelling, and darkly funny, Troublemaker is about dislocation, obsession, and the search for affection. Pera's debut is a tour-de-force of voice and structure, marking the emergence of a major young writer.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Take a 22-year-old boy with an Ozark background and let him hustle his body on the streets of New York City, all the while high on junk and liquor, and what do you get? Trouble, as Pera demonstrates in his debut novel. Kicked around from Omaha to Memphis to rural Arkansas as a child, narrator Earl finally ends up on a bus for New York. Casting around for work on the mean streets, Earl happens upon Madam, who owns a male brothel. Earl has learned to turn tricks in Memphis, and how to take drugs. In New York, he becomes a full-fledged junkie, ripping off Madam and hopping from one dubious sugar daddy to the next. After a string of affairs, Earl beating up a Wall Street businessman named Walrus, presumably killing him. In a highly strung-out condition, he goes back to Madam, who buys him a ticket home. But where is home? When Earl reaches Omaha, his mother won't let him in. Then he meets a pugnacious but physically appealing young man named Red at a carnival. After Red leaves town suddenly, Earl tracks him to Colorado Springs. Red has dyed his hair and calls himself Robert now. But Red is less than thrilled about a reunion with Earl; it turns out he's with a gang of "hawks," who recruit orphan boys from the heartlands for nefarious big-city business. Earl's Li'l Abner dialect, all "I's" and "you's," grows tedious, but Pera's elaborate, circuitous narrative is rich in nuance. By releasing information in the story in accordance with the way Earl remembers it, Pera plunges us into the uprooted desperation of Earl's consciousness, with its sad refrain: "What to do, what to do, now I run out of places." (July)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Earl, an uneducated Southern drifter in his early 20s, reveals his life to the reader in a series of flashbacks. After his father dies, Earl's mother throws him out of the house, sending him to his father's mother in Memphis. When his grandmother becomes increasingly affected by Alzheimer's disease, she also tells him to leave. Barely out of his teens, Earl moves into a flophouse and begins hustling, eventually landing in New York and a whorehouse run by Madam. Once again, he finds it difficult to fit in and leaves before he can be thrown out. After trying to live on the streets and spending a brief period as a kept boy, he goes back to Madam and asks for help. When she offers to send him back to his mother, he agrees, having no other option. But his mother won't let him in the house, and Earl heads for a carnival, where he meets and falls in love with Red only to lose him. Much of the storytelling takes place while Earl is hunting for Red. First-time novelist Pera presents a very real look at what could happen to any child who doesn't receive love and support. A difficult and emotional read; recommended for all libraries.DT.R. Salvadori, Margaret E. Heggan Free P.L., Hurffville, NJ
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press; 1st edition (July 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312252323
• ISBN-13: 978-0312252328
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,261,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Brian Pera is the author of Troublemaker (St.Martin's Press) and the writer/director of the film The Way I See Things. The Way I See Things was selected as part of Los Angeles Outfest's Four in Focus program, was one of three finalists for the Scion First Time Filmmaker Award, and featured in the Focus section at The 2008 Thessaloniki International Film Festival in Greece. Pera has written for the San Francisco Bay Guardian, The Stranger, Make/Shift, Mall Punk, Mirage, Nerve, Nest, Fanzine, and The Commercial Appeal, among other publications.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Romantic Defiance, April 2, 2001

By 

"[e-mail]" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Troublemaker (Hardcover)

Earl hustles, shoots up, and drinks. He lies, robs johns, and clobbers one bad daddy with a lamp. He looks 15, passes for 18, says he's 22. But for a troublemaker, he's not a bad kid. You won't exactly like him, but he's hard to dislike. Unlike the Dixie Chics' Earl, whose just desserts are poisoned peas, Pera's peripatetic anti-hero earns sympathy, if not affection, as his thoughts erratically span his pilgrimage from Omaha to Memphis, Buford, Ark., New York, and Colorado Springs. Earl is an innocent rogue, like all those Hucks and Holdens troubled by the way the world is and unable to figure out what's wrong with it. He's so beclouded that some reviewers have mis-read his drop-out grammar, street urchin idioms, and obsession with Red/Jared/Robert--another hustler and hub of all his non-sequential thoughts--as proof he's retarded. He's not. What he is, is an actor-victim in a picaresque role he'd rather not play but can't escape.

Earl's world is absurd, mean. Marvel he's so forgiving. His drunk father dies, leaving him nothing but a flask. His mother dumps him on his demented Nana. Grandma beads him with a gun, then buys him a one-way ticket to New York. There he proves too up-front for tricks, and Madam (bless her golden heart) sends him back to Omaha. His mother peeks behind the curtains but won't open the door. He drifts to a carnival and meets Red, whose savvy takes him in--though Red won't. When Red vanishes, Earl becomes obsessed with finding this slightly more-adept mirror of himself.

Troublemaker is a desperate seeking for self, combing the landscape of the heart--the real geography of the novel--for someone to belong to in spite of rejection. It's this hope that, after all, makes a disjointed narrative-Earl's, not the author's; Pera is deft with voice and viewpoint as well as cinematic time and locus shifts--a Romantic act of defiance instead of a meaningless soup of alienation to drown in. Earl can't see land, but he feels it's out there, and he keeps on swimming. Despite exploitation and snuff films, Earl clings sentimentally to beauty in bad art--a photo of Red, a picture postcard, a cheap figurine of a freckled boy and his dog gone fishin'.

On its surface, Troublemaker shares the world of Dennis Cooper, who inspires Pera and earned Troublemaker's grateful dedication. But beyond the seedy underworld and stylistic iconoclasm these writers share, their ends lie worlds apart. Cooper draws the ire of straight and gay readers for choosing taboo subjects and refusing to take sides--even on the most disturbing issues of sexual behavior and politics. Pera transcends the sordid and frames it between his opening and final chapters in the Gateway to the Garden of the Gods, where American Indians once got wild, saw visions, and were One within the circle. Pera's novel reiterates the wonder Bruce Springsteen finds in post-modern times: "At the end of every hard-earned day, people find some reason to believe."

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Virtual "Literary Journey" Ride, August 16, 2000

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Vicki (Memphis, TN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Troublemaker (Hardcover)

This book was selected by my book club as our monthly selection; otherwise, I might never have read this awesome book because it is misleadingly catalogued as "gay youth fiction." The fact that Earl, the protagonist of the story, is gay, has little relevancy to the underlying and deeper story of this book. The structure takes the reader on a virtual reality ride right along with Earl-jumping from one place to another-sometimes dazed and confused, allowing the reader to truly experience Earl's sense of confusion as he takes that universal journey searching for acceptance, love and a sense of stability. The author is able to incredibly utilize this structure without losing the reader's interest. The obstacles Earl faces along his journey -homelessness, drug addiction, and lack of emotional and family support- are met with his inate and unconscious sense of self worth and his strong desire for love and belonging. This is one of the most moving books I've read - it sent a chilling wake-up call as to my own participation in the judgmental and sterotyping society of today.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars laugh out loud funny, August 12, 2000

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jeremy (new york) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Troublemaker (Hardcover)

Bought this book after a review in Time Out which praised it without mentioning how funny it is. Yet I was laughing out loud. It's sad and everything and grim but hilarious too. The lead character has some of the funniest lines I've read. Very twisted. The way he talks gets inside your head. I thought it was a refreshing take on class, sex, and rootlessness. And anybody who's read above a grade school level should be able to keep track of things. It's set up like a mystery in a way. You keep reading wondering how it's going to pull together. I look forward to Pera's next one.