Ira David Socol The Drool Room
"One cannot easily
dismiss the iconic similarities between the cover of The
Drool Room and
Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. The starkly lit classroom, at once
familiar yet ominous with all the
fears that a young child holds about going into the strange world and Kubrick's
fluorescent vision
of terror. Terror doesn't hide in the dark here- as with little Danny, it's in
the mind, front and center.
"And like Danny's infamous, "redrum" with it's dyslexic construction and
backwards
letters, The Drool Room's
cover title lets you know that this is a child's terror. But where
Danny had Tony, his imaginary friend who lived in his mouth and from whom he
took his direction,
our protagonist here, unnamed throughout, runs mostly solo through the suburban
grid of New Rochelle.
"That this story unfolds in the town of Rob and Laura Petrie, a modest bedroom
community, places more onus
on the breakdown of this life. This isn't the wretched slums of the inner city
nor the dire simplicity of rural poverty.
The suburbs should be a place of sheltered nurturing... there are parks, trees and
beautiful schools. Socol treats the
splendor of middle class life like drugs. Parks become secret hideouts to escape
abuse. In fact, much of the first half of
the book is an architectural tour... We get descriptions of these place as
if they were a French jail from
Frank Abagnale's Catch Me if You Can."
- Kurt Ochshorn
"...even with the time and location
displacements, the story still follows straight through with a noble voice and
no irony."
- Bill Fuchs
Bring The Drool Room
to your book club
click here to start the discussion
"I ain't crazy," declares the narrator of this
stunningly original novel, "I'm not."
But sanity is always an elusive thing in this tale that carries the reader
through
a life torn apart by anger, frustration, and disappointment - but held together
by an absolute refusal to "give up."
A first grader who can neither read nor sit
still. An angry junior high student lashing out
at those trying to help. A self-medicating high school athlete. All this leads
us to an adult police officer
on the streets of The Bronx at the most crime-wracked moment in New York City
history.
The Drool Room may not make you love its
complex protagonist, but it will force you to see life through
the fascinating eyes of a remarkable character.
Fiction/Literature Microfiction
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