is another great book by Dave Newman, It's a book about brothers and how they manage to entangle their financial futures together by getting the one brother the younger to become a cross country trucker.
I forget what the older brother contributed to the plan, maybe he helped invest in the rig, But the bar scenes between the brothers as they get drunk and concoct their plan is priceless, The older brother comes across as the brains/more successful of the two, The younger brother goes along with the plan and before the reader knows it, we're on a road trip with a trucker, This trucker writing and descriptions of the pill popping truck driver life is way better than, "Breaker Breaker this here's Rubber Duck, I said let them truckers roll,".
Newman's descriptions of driving a truck, popping pills, waiting for loads in shithole towns, dealing with predatory women on the open road, and hoping for safer love on the home front is all too real and humorous and meaningful.
This is a masterpiece by a great working class American writer, Dan Charles reads Whitman the way some people read the Bible, He works three jobs. He attends college. Dans older brother sells industrial parts and wants out, Dan wants something. In TWO SMALL BIRDS, the brothers take flight in the worst possible way, This is the story of what it means to be family, to be working class, and to dream of being a poet in a world that refuses books.
Set in tiny apartments and roadside diners, truckstops and warehouses, dive bars and worse hotels, TWO SMALL BIRDS is a story of misdemeanors and perseverance, the jobs we take and the lives we lose.
Its the story of love, and whoever is in charge of that, Its just a really, really strong look at a scrappers life, plain and simple, Another terrific, and gutsy bluecollar novel for the hardworking and hardliving everyman from Newman, A story of two brothers, their dreams, and the work they put in to make it happen all beautifully blended with the existential angst of youth, the uselessness and necessity of poetry and poisoned love, and the diesel fumes and methamphetamine of longdistance trucking.
In short, another novel from Newman, and from Pittsburgh that you don't want to miss, too rough, angry, violent for my tastes The things a writer will do to himself when he isn't writing, . . I never thought I'd find a book about brotherhood and truck driving so interesting, Nicely developed plot arc and a good experiment with a sympathetic antagonist, I have become a big fan of Newman's work, especally his poetry, In this novel, Newman explores the relationship between two brothers, who are endeavoring to save money so they can start up their own business, Newman captures the strain created by sacrifice and how love can make people insane, His gift is in highlightening the importance of secondary charactes and how they infuence the unraveling of the story, My only complaint is that I finished it too quickly and now have to wait for his next work, As always, Dave Newman writes characters that are real and raw and vulnerable, Enjoyed this story as much as everything I have read from Newman, and maybe even more, Great writing style! Dan Charles is a recent college graduate, the passion of his studiesPoetry, With a love of Walt Whitman, a deep curiosity of Thoreau, and an obsession with Carl Sandburg, he finds himself stuck in the humdrum, everyday working life of western Pennsylvania.
In a small world where Poetry is laughed at, education is shunned, and the love of arts is not commonly shared, Dan moves from job to job, trying to make it on his own.
His parents have moved to Michigan after the plant his father worked for closed down, Dan is left to tread water with his slightly older brother, John, who sells industrial parts to local businesses and has a much better grasp on their current reality than Dan at least were led to think so.
“Two Small Birds” by Dave Newman is a novel written in the first person character of Dan and reads much like the characters memoir, We are mesmerized by Dans blunt account of his life and sympathetic to his plight in a setting that ignores who is, forcing him to conform to the reality of its everyday life.
But Dans brother, John, has a plan for both of them to make it in this world, His idea is for Dan to take a job as a truck driver, and they will save what he makes to eventually start their own business, Dan takes the job, and we are taken on a whirlwind tour of Dans experience through road trips across America, bars, whorehouses, and the oddest of situations.
Newmans stylistic writing allows us to clearly hear Dans sometimes desperate voice, We feel his depression, we get angry with him, and we feel as hopeless as he does, Through it all, Dan and his brother escape through the many barrooms of western Pennsylvania, where they drink, fight, argue, and hatch crazy plans that may or may not succeed.
Newmans supporting characters are as real and as genuine as the main character, John is the older brother who is supposed to be some sort of superior authority, yet like most, fails miserably in the role, Becca is Dans taunting and irritating girlfriend whose passion for sex he shares, She is a lively, goofy, and a well drawn character wed love to slap as much as Dan would,
Newman keeps us traveling with Dan, turning the pages to discover what will happen to him, how his life will ultimately turn out, Early in the book, after a night at the bar,
we are placed in a tense and nail biting scene with Dan and John in the front seat.
And then Newman brilliantly takes us back into the past, leading us up that very moment which will be Dans ultimate epiphany, Towards the end of the novel, Dan sums up his current stage of life in a moment of clarity,
“For the past ten months I never worked harder or more hours at a worse job in my lifeand Id worked terrible jobs since I was a teenagerbut the rest of it, my free time, was like a party Id dreamed for myself back in high school.
I seldom lived without immediate access to drugs or copious amounts of alcohol, There were strippers. There were hookers. There were fights. ”
“Following my brother was my only plan, I was clumsy with everything, even when I stood still, even when my hands were empty, The way I talked was a beat off, The way I dressed was pathetic, ”
As we return to the front seat of the car, the climactic scene ends with the realization we hope that Dan will find throughout the book.
The final words become a perfect analogy of Dans life as hes known it, and the change of life comes over him, Newman has created a luminous coming of age novel that shines not only on the main character, but on an everyday, American setting that many know nothing about.
“Two Small Birds” is a topshelf literary accomplishment, establishing Newman comfortably in the category of his idols,
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