Rough Peace

by Thom Garvey

ROUGH PEACE is about family--about it as an institution. Is it viable these days, or are we destined to live our lives as loners? Or are our families--and the agonies they bequeath us--all we ever truly have? ROUGH PEACE is a sweeping, character-driven family saga. The three intricately interwoven story lines span a good part of the twentieth century, taking us from Sunnyside to southern Italy. It is filled with sparkling darkness, colorful characters, attention to detail and subtle deification of the ordinary person who has to reach deep to overcome catastrophic emotional loss. ROUGH PEACE is very much a literary novel, yet written in a generous everyman's prose. It extracts every drop of blood from seemingly everyday moments. In 1950's Sunnyside Queens, working class Anna marries the boy next door, Douglas, a brilliant, handsome but uncertain young man. Doug's family is WASP, educated, intellectual, staunchly American. Anna's people are Italian Catholic immigrants, domestic with no formal education. Doug and Anna's nine-year old son Ricky takes us through gritty 1970's New York. And then as an adolescent and young man he seeks to dig up the roots of his families turmoil and his father's alcoholism and tragic death. In 1914 Italy nine-year old Enzo waits for his father to return from America. His mother has an affair with a priest and is murdered by her own father as Enzo witnesses the horrific act. Young Enzo escapes to America and sets himself on a tragic course until his grandson Ricky redeems the family, finding compassion for his forebears and ultimately a rough peace.

314 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 20, 2013

Reviews

[Mary Cooney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Rough Peace. I was riveted from the
very first page to the last. The characters were so believable,
I felt like I knew them personally. The setting is memorable from Sunnyside Queens to Southern Italy.

The immigrant experience and the experience of the children of immigrants comes to life. I especially felt that the use of language was palpable. The cadence, they rhythm of the sentences made the people and the neighborhoods come flying off the page. I have not felt such sympathy for characters in a long time. I was rooting for the right thing to happen almost as much as I was longing for the bad guys to get their comeuppance.

It was really difficult to put this book down as the character the pacing and the superb story telling had me enthralled. If you are looking for a face paced, topical story about an authentic immigrant experience as well as coming of age story, look no further.

[Stephen Chan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rough Peace reads like a movie. You feel like you're spending genuine time with all the characters; the way they interact with others, the internal dialogue that battles in their minds when they're alone, the way they laugh and eat and pass the hours. Though there is obvious craft behind the words, Garvey never lets style or literary construction get in the way of honest emotion. Back to the movie comparison, Rough Peace recalled the moods I remember from The Godfather II, A Bronx Tale, Angela's Ashes, Brooklyn and other giant films that captured the immigrant experience, childhood innocence (and the shattering of it), and the trappings of family and community.

This is a heavy book. There were unsettling, stomach-turning events that stayed with me long after the pages were flipped. But I also remember the light air of romance with music in the background, the little jokes between characters that put smiles on their faces, and the fuzzy warmth of youth.

Don't worry about getting lost with the three different time periods. Garvey stitches it all together without confusion. You get to understanding everyone within a few paragraphs of meeting them, and you wonder about them when they're not on the page. More than wonder actually, you care about them. That's the best thing a story can do.

[Eshore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rough Peace is a rich, vibrant novel with careful development of unforgettable characters and a sensitive, precise, completely absorbing creation of the environments in which their lives unfold. Thom Garvey conjures 1970s New York City with expert, nuanced perfection, and he also takes you to a southern Italy in the early 20th century that steeps your imagination in beauty and terror. You will identify with and sometimes be outraged by the flawed, vulnerable humanity of Ricky's parents, relatives, and ancestors, and like Ricky, you will want to protect them from themselves and each other, yet they will all compel your love and loyalty, and they will live inside you long after the story ends. Garvey has a remarkable sense of place and the rare ability to create a world that you -- along with the characters -- struggle against, yet feel haunted by and compelled to revisit.

[Evelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Rough Peace" is a breathtaking novel. I read it in two days, and it was difficult for me to put it aside once I began reading.

The plot and the characters, especially those of Ricky, Annabella and Isabella, are so real, so authentic and show such depth that I stepped back in time immediately and left for a journey back and forth between Queens and Italy.

As a silent observer, I lived their lives with them, throughout the years - a roller coaster of lives filled with pain and joy, passion and fear, desperation, longing and hope. A silent observer who often very much wished to be able to speak out, interfere, protect, fight, or simply embrace.

It has been a while that I enjoyed reading a book that much. And I’d love to know what the future will bring for Ricky…

[Arthur Robbins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have just finished reading "Rough Peace," a well-crafted novel, executed with a sure hand. We are taken to dark places, Jimmy at his worst, moving places, Ricky in the funeral home, beautiful places, 1914, a small village in Italy.

"Rough Peace" held my attention throughout. The violence is real, at times too real for me. But that is testimony to the power of the writing. "Rough Peace"l does what a good novel should do. It leaves us with a heightened sense of being alive. What more could one ask for?