A Fine Place

by Nicholas Montemarano

Drawn from actual events, a dramatic debut novel, centered around the aftermath of the brutal death of Yusuf Hawkins, a black teenager, at the hands of a gang of young white men in 1989, follows Tony Santangelo, one of the young men responsible, as he tries to move on with his life after serving time in prison, while his family tries to deal with their own guilt and silence. 25,000 first printing.

224 pages, Hardcover

First published February 9, 2002

About the author

Nicholas Montemarano's most recent novel, The Senator's Children, was published by Tin House Books. He is the author of two previous novels and a short story collection. His first memoir, If There Are Any Heavens, was published in 2022. He has received a Pushcart Prize and an NEA fellowship. He grew up in Queens and now lives in Lancaster, PA, where he is the Alumni Professor of Creative Writing and Belles Lettres at Franklin & Marshall College.

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a scene in a department store. There are a lot of scenes inside the apartment when everything is boiled down to basic day to day routine living. The idea of normal. The shopping. The cooking. The dynamics of a tight knit family. Read this if you want to learn about dynamics of a tight knit family.

This book is about Tony. And how families and neighborhoods can create thin people. But how those people don't want to be so thin. They don't want to be thin. They want to be creative. They want the candy dish to also be an ashtray, sometimes. They want to have ideas and for other people to support that they have ideas. They want to expand the idea of normal, so they make promises to themselves. That they won't cry. That they won't hit the body.

This book is about a hate crime, and the pain of a murder, and a family member in prison, and learning racism, and unlearning racism, and fear and okay.

This was essayed in WWHAT'S UP reading list.