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Black Wolf
Some people tell you that adolescence sucks. Other people tell you that it’s the absolute tits. Vincent Wing regards these as moronic simplifications even though he happens to agree with both.
For Black Wolf is a tale of chiaroscuros, true to the disconcerting nature of adolescence.
Vincent is a humorous, stargazing senior about to embark on a graduation trip. He’s dumped his girlfriend, he’s chosen his roommates, and he’s set his eyes on another young girl. But try as he will… he isn’t like the rest. He’s brooding, creative, disaffected, and obsessive. What will this week-long, alcohol-fueled getaway unleash on his unsuspecting psyche?
Both a love story and a study of fear, a comedy of errors and a tragedy of precisions; Black Wolf is a funny, earnest look at the life of a mindful, 21st century teenager.
Also—if you’re religious, it will make for a nice fire.
For Black Wolf is a tale of chiaroscuros, true to the disconcerting nature of adolescence.
Vincent is a humorous, stargazing senior about to embark on a graduation trip. He’s dumped his girlfriend, he’s chosen his roommates, and he’s set his eyes on another young girl. But try as he will… he isn’t like the rest. He’s brooding, creative, disaffected, and obsessive. What will this week-long, alcohol-fueled getaway unleash on his unsuspecting psyche?
Both a love story and a study of fear, a comedy of errors and a tragedy of precisions; Black Wolf is a funny, earnest look at the life of a mindful, 21st century teenager.
Also—if you’re religious, it will make for a nice fire.
264 pages, Paperback
First published October 24, 2014
1 person is currently reading
8 people want to read
About the author
Andrés Aloi
1 bookAndres Aloi was born in 1989 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he now resides. He has pursued his creative passions in art, film, music, acting, and screenwriting, having studied film direction, acting, communications, guitar, and history. In his free time, he enjoys watching movies and listening to music, and always reading. As a cinephile, he loves to collect films, and he also collects vinyl records.
The author admits to being an artistic type who was once stuck in a business-oriented high school. As a student, he traveled to Brazil on a senior trip that inspired him to begin writing what would become his novel Black Wolf. Aloi's style is unapologetically blunt, but with a fresh, new perspective—a welcome addition to literary fiction. Like his character Vincent, he suffers from fantastical "Walter Mitty daydreams," during one of which he first encountered the lone, ice-skating, black wolf.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 2, 2015
Review by IndieReader:
BLACK WOLF by Andrés Aloi is a tale of a young man named Vincent Wing, which begins with a prologue explaining that the story is an autobiography about him when he was in high school. He’s now twenty years old and wonders if anything truly has changed or changed him since then. It’s a coming of age tale of being a young man in high school who is horny and in love, and how the two desires don’t always go together. Much of the focus of the novel is on the relationships of Vincent with his ex-girlfriend, Clara; the new girl he desires, Maggie; along with his friendship with his close peers.
The novel is filled with the experiences of Vincent and his friends as they take a senior high school trip from their Catholic high school in Argentina to a resort in Brazil for one last blowout before they graduate; a sort of final bacchanal of drinking and (hopefully) sex before facing real life. Vincent and his friends, Hot Dog, Fifth, the Robot, Figs, Gulu, Chink, Colagen, Casper, and so forth, take the reader on an excursion of youth in all it crudities and failures. The novel is at times quite funny, as well as poignant, but does require a certain taste to truly enjoy. If one has problems with the F-word or the S-word, and casual references regarding female anatomy and sex then the novel will take a while in which to get accustomed. However, for many young men, discussions of sex and swearing in high school are as natural as hoping to sneak a peek at a girl’s panties when she bends over to tie her sneakers.
BLACK WOLF is an effective depiction of youth from a male point of view in all its natural, yet crude, splendor. And it is this aspect of the novel that at times may wear a little thin for some readers. It would have been nice if more time had been spent on getting to know Vincent’s friends in more ways than just the crudeness of their actions. However, the novel does an excellent job of depicting young men in their natural habitat, even if that may mean seeing them for what they are, boys trying to understand how to become men by pretending to be men through the use of crassness and false bravado.
BLACK WOLF is immediately reminiscent of Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, in which the story is told from the point of view of the rebel teen trying to find his place in the world. This storyline is easily relatable to any young man in high school who is about to leave the safe institution he’s been housed in for four years to soon face the real world of college, job responsibilities, marrying, or starting a family. Perhaps, as with Vincent, it might be a good idea for all young people to experience a final bacchanal blowout before leaving high school and facing the realities of life. As to the title, BLACK WOLF, it might be best understood when one reads about the white wolf encountered toward the end of the novel, which seems to help clarify Vincent’s conflict within himself.
BLACK WOLF provides an effective view of early manhood and the trials of growing up and facing lust and love, not necessarily in that order. Its use of humor and teenage angst is sure to relate.
~ IndieReader.
BLACK WOLF by Andrés Aloi is a tale of a young man named Vincent Wing, which begins with a prologue explaining that the story is an autobiography about him when he was in high school. He’s now twenty years old and wonders if anything truly has changed or changed him since then. It’s a coming of age tale of being a young man in high school who is horny and in love, and how the two desires don’t always go together. Much of the focus of the novel is on the relationships of Vincent with his ex-girlfriend, Clara; the new girl he desires, Maggie; along with his friendship with his close peers.
The novel is filled with the experiences of Vincent and his friends as they take a senior high school trip from their Catholic high school in Argentina to a resort in Brazil for one last blowout before they graduate; a sort of final bacchanal of drinking and (hopefully) sex before facing real life. Vincent and his friends, Hot Dog, Fifth, the Robot, Figs, Gulu, Chink, Colagen, Casper, and so forth, take the reader on an excursion of youth in all it crudities and failures. The novel is at times quite funny, as well as poignant, but does require a certain taste to truly enjoy. If one has problems with the F-word or the S-word, and casual references regarding female anatomy and sex then the novel will take a while in which to get accustomed. However, for many young men, discussions of sex and swearing in high school are as natural as hoping to sneak a peek at a girl’s panties when she bends over to tie her sneakers.
BLACK WOLF is an effective depiction of youth from a male point of view in all its natural, yet crude, splendor. And it is this aspect of the novel that at times may wear a little thin for some readers. It would have been nice if more time had been spent on getting to know Vincent’s friends in more ways than just the crudeness of their actions. However, the novel does an excellent job of depicting young men in their natural habitat, even if that may mean seeing them for what they are, boys trying to understand how to become men by pretending to be men through the use of crassness and false bravado.
BLACK WOLF is immediately reminiscent of Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, in which the story is told from the point of view of the rebel teen trying to find his place in the world. This storyline is easily relatable to any young man in high school who is about to leave the safe institution he’s been housed in for four years to soon face the real world of college, job responsibilities, marrying, or starting a family. Perhaps, as with Vincent, it might be a good idea for all young people to experience a final bacchanal blowout before leaving high school and facing the realities of life. As to the title, BLACK WOLF, it might be best understood when one reads about the white wolf encountered toward the end of the novel, which seems to help clarify Vincent’s conflict within himself.
BLACK WOLF provides an effective view of early manhood and the trials of growing up and facing lust and love, not necessarily in that order. Its use of humor and teenage angst is sure to relate.
~ IndieReader.
January 24, 2015
"Dark and Wild"
Black Wolf, by Andrés Aloi, surprises and hits you hard. The novel is set around a high school senior's graduation trip. It feigns on being a Bildungsroman but does not completely develop into such, as the author admits right off the bat: "I was writing this coming-of-age tale of my experiences as a high school senior in a graduation trip, when I suddenly realized—I haven’t come of age at all." (p. ix)
As an opera prima, of course there are details that could have been improved, but the novel has a very good tone to it and it is a great immersion in 21st century adolescence. A lot of intelligent adolescents are very much like the narrator, Vincent Wing: complicated, sometimes arrogant and insecure at the same time, angry, confused. Aloi sets the tone from the first sentence: "My name is Vincent Wing and I am a pussy." (p. ix). It is a jester's tone, direct and colloquial, a constant mix of profanity and elevated argumentation and the complicated words ironically projected by the narrator. Another high point, which has points of contact with the other two I've mentioned, is the dialogue (the influence of screen language is apparent): crisp, funny and believable, a depiction of a different adolescence.
At the end of the day, that is the novel's major achievement. An immersion, sometimes messy and confusing, through what the author would call the black wolf's hole: the psyche of a smart and complex adolescent. A kid that could ask himself "What’s the point in being intelligent if you’re so emotionally disturbed that everything you do ends up being stupid anyway?" (p. 79), a kid that realizes that "I know who I want to be, but I have no idea concerning who the hell I am." (p. 223)
Black Wolf, by Andrés Aloi, surprises and hits you hard. The novel is set around a high school senior's graduation trip. It feigns on being a Bildungsroman but does not completely develop into such, as the author admits right off the bat: "I was writing this coming-of-age tale of my experiences as a high school senior in a graduation trip, when I suddenly realized—I haven’t come of age at all." (p. ix)
As an opera prima, of course there are details that could have been improved, but the novel has a very good tone to it and it is a great immersion in 21st century adolescence. A lot of intelligent adolescents are very much like the narrator, Vincent Wing: complicated, sometimes arrogant and insecure at the same time, angry, confused. Aloi sets the tone from the first sentence: "My name is Vincent Wing and I am a pussy." (p. ix). It is a jester's tone, direct and colloquial, a constant mix of profanity and elevated argumentation and the complicated words ironically projected by the narrator. Another high point, which has points of contact with the other two I've mentioned, is the dialogue (the influence of screen language is apparent): crisp, funny and believable, a depiction of a different adolescence.
At the end of the day, that is the novel's major achievement. An immersion, sometimes messy and confusing, through what the author would call the black wolf's hole: the psyche of a smart and complex adolescent. A kid that could ask himself "What’s the point in being intelligent if you’re so emotionally disturbed that everything you do ends up being stupid anyway?" (p. 79), a kid that realizes that "I know who I want to be, but I have no idea concerning who the hell I am." (p. 223)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews