{"product_id":"roughhouse-9781885030269","title":"Roughhouse","description":"\u003ci\u003eRoughhouse\u003c\/i\u003e gives a harrowingly deadpan account of the tedium, casual violence and deviant sex that connect a surreal, semi-rural childhood with adult urban neurosis. Terse flashes of narrative, told from the point of view of a troubled youth, provide a stark sketch of an American family on the brink: a gun-toting father prone to inexplicable rages; a mother who speaks in ineffectual, half-remembered Chinese homilies; siblings rendered almost mute from excessive bleakness. And there's the narrator himself, who responds to the torment of home and neighborhood bullies with increasingly aberrant behavior, including sexual bondage and a form of pyromania that requires placing a paper bag over one's head and igniting it. In spare, unrelenting prose that has been honed to a point, Rutkowski ferrets out the hard bone of absurdity at the center of emotional displacement. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eThaddeus Rutkowski\u003c\/b\u003e grew up in central Pennsylvania and now lives in New York. His work has been published in numerous publications, including Fiction magazine and The New York Times. He is a winner of the Nuyorican Poets Café's Poetry Slam. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"[Rutkowski's] sulfuric tale of family breakdown and fetishism chronicles the confusion and opacity of traumatic childhood even as it criticizes the American society that tolerates such inhumanity.\"-- Publishers Weekly \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Rutkowski gives us a novel in bites and slices: sharp, shocking, and certainly not for the faint-hearted. Here is gall with gusto, a voice of reckoning, and writing to be reckoned with.\" -- Molly Peacock\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Kaya\/Muae\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/02\/1999\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781885030269\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 166\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.43lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 7.02h x 5.04w x 0.44d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 04\/05\/1999 pg. 224\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Thaddeus Rutkowski","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52284230992053,"sku":"9781885030269","price":9.31,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/files\/img_f80f475f-aef1-4d65-acbd-bc93d17b6385.jpg?v=1771990285","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/roughhouse-9781885030269","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}