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Finding Martin Bloom
After losing her mother on the day of her high school graduation, Dillon Bloom enters college and discovers that her calling is to become a writer. When she finds out that the father she thought had died in her infancy may be a very much alive and famous, but reclusive, novelist she is determined to find him and discover whether he is, in fact, her father. Martin Bloom, her father, is killing himself with alcohol and, after being fired from teaching positions at Harvard and Stanford, he is living a degenerate life on a boat in Saigon, Vietnam, hoping to regain his ability to write. Dillon’s search for her father, a quest which takes her from Oregon to Massachusetts to California and finally to Vietnam, is an odyssey of alternating hope and despair in which two anti-social people, father and daughter, struggle with their identities and the meaning of the other in each of their lives.
243 pages, Paperback
Published March 26, 2016
3 people want to read
About the author
Casey Dorman
46 books23 followersCasey Dorman is a former university professor and dean, a psychologist, a literary review editor, an essayist, and the author of fourteen novels, a collection of short stories and poems, and three non-fiction books, including a volume in the Johns Hopkins Series on Neuroscience and Psychiatry. He is the former editor and publisher of the literary magazine, "Lost Coast Review." His fiction, essays, and poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines. He has published academic and research articles in psychology, medical, public health and philosophy journals. He is a member of the Society of Philosophers in America. His most recent novel is the sci-fi thriller, “Ezekiel’s Brain,” published by NewLink Publishing in 2021. He is working on the sequel. He and his wife, Lai, live in Southern California and enjoy traveling, wine-tasting, gardening, and visiting with their children, grandchildren and great-grandchild as well as their nieces and nephews.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 30, 2016
I didn't know what to expect when I opened the pages of Finding Martin Bloom. But it did not disappoint. It took me on a journey of the heart. Dorman has a way of making unlikable characters likable: a teenager filled with angst and a drunken father who has done little in his life to warrant any sympathy. But you go on this journey and discover the best in the flawed human beings they are, hoping that redemption is theirs. You many not find redemption, but you do find a heartwarming tale of a broken family and the indestructible ties that will put the pieces back together.
October 14, 2019
A Heroine’s Journey Filled with Wisdom
Faced with the death of her mother and discovery that her father (long thought dead) might still be alive, 19-year-old Dillon ventures off in search of Martin Bloom, a famous, reclusive writer who may well be her last living relative. This opening of Casey Dorman’s profound novel Finding Martin Bloom leads the reader to places that make for both an exciting narrative and a clever literary exploration.
Moving back and forth from the perspectives of daughter and father, the novel steadily and intriguingly pieces together the essence of Martin as a writer and as an individual – both of these personas are wildly complex. As Dillon notes, “I again marveled at how he managed to collect valuable people around him, despite his obvious defects as a human being.” As she continues to gather impressions, hear anecdotes, and read Martin’s novels, her burgeoning realizations that both father and daughter possess similar yearnings become one of this books many pleasures.
Martin Bloom’s torpid lifestyle as he wallows in his obsession with aging serves as a fine counterpoint to his youthful daughter’s arduous journey, one which mirrors heroic quests descending from Telemachus right through Stephen Dedalus (the surname Bloom only enhancing the literary legacy; as does the first name Martin, the combative descendent of the Kingsley Amis). By presenting a female protagonist, Dorman informs the novel and Dillon with the awareness, suspicion, and savvy of another juxtaposed legacy – feminism (allusions to Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees underscore this connection). The advice of her dead mother about the seductive and abusive nature of many men serves as a third rail throughout the novel. Indeed, Dillon’s social awkwardness and justifiable guardedness present her journey with additional challenges.
Her encounters and correspondences with the Cindy and Betsy (an Arizona mother and daughter) offer her the one true communal sense of family that is absent for most of the novel – from the opening moment when her mother dies. Ultimately, Dillon’s journey will take her to Saigon, a place that seems to mirror the complexity of Martin’s soul. Dorman’s depiction of the city is wonderfully atmospheric and evocative, a warren of pullulating vitality awash with corruption.
Finding Martin Bloom is marked by memorable characters. Through his brilliant self abuse, Martin offers a multitude of insights about writers, their passions, and their compulsions – ones I refuse to undermine by prepackaging here. Despite his frailties and cruelties, he is a terribly likeable character, his absurd self-awareness of his flaws making him much more than tolerable … say addictively fascinating. In her blunt instinctual reactions and her sharp tongue, Dillon peppers the narrative with many funny lines. Adding to these festivities, Stanford professor Sylvia is particularly amusing in her imperious treatment of the “guest” student Chris (Dorman has loads of fun deflating the pomposity of academia). Sylvia’s early interactions with Martin help flesh out his character, one prone to intellectual ruminations, to struggles with the implications of conformity, and to pathetic rationalizations.
The novel’s conclusion has a redemptive power that is both credible and inspirational, featuring a final unsettling story from Martin that is the worthy culmination of this thrilling work. Finding Martin Bloom is a great read that also offers so much intellectual stimulation. I highly recommend the novel.
Faced with the death of her mother and discovery that her father (long thought dead) might still be alive, 19-year-old Dillon ventures off in search of Martin Bloom, a famous, reclusive writer who may well be her last living relative. This opening of Casey Dorman’s profound novel Finding Martin Bloom leads the reader to places that make for both an exciting narrative and a clever literary exploration.
Moving back and forth from the perspectives of daughter and father, the novel steadily and intriguingly pieces together the essence of Martin as a writer and as an individual – both of these personas are wildly complex. As Dillon notes, “I again marveled at how he managed to collect valuable people around him, despite his obvious defects as a human being.” As she continues to gather impressions, hear anecdotes, and read Martin’s novels, her burgeoning realizations that both father and daughter possess similar yearnings become one of this books many pleasures.
Martin Bloom’s torpid lifestyle as he wallows in his obsession with aging serves as a fine counterpoint to his youthful daughter’s arduous journey, one which mirrors heroic quests descending from Telemachus right through Stephen Dedalus (the surname Bloom only enhancing the literary legacy; as does the first name Martin, the combative descendent of the Kingsley Amis). By presenting a female protagonist, Dorman informs the novel and Dillon with the awareness, suspicion, and savvy of another juxtaposed legacy – feminism (allusions to Kingsolver’s The Bean Trees underscore this connection). The advice of her dead mother about the seductive and abusive nature of many men serves as a third rail throughout the novel. Indeed, Dillon’s social awkwardness and justifiable guardedness present her journey with additional challenges.
Her encounters and correspondences with the Cindy and Betsy (an Arizona mother and daughter) offer her the one true communal sense of family that is absent for most of the novel – from the opening moment when her mother dies. Ultimately, Dillon’s journey will take her to Saigon, a place that seems to mirror the complexity of Martin’s soul. Dorman’s depiction of the city is wonderfully atmospheric and evocative, a warren of pullulating vitality awash with corruption.
Finding Martin Bloom is marked by memorable characters. Through his brilliant self abuse, Martin offers a multitude of insights about writers, their passions, and their compulsions – ones I refuse to undermine by prepackaging here. Despite his frailties and cruelties, he is a terribly likeable character, his absurd self-awareness of his flaws making him much more than tolerable … say addictively fascinating. In her blunt instinctual reactions and her sharp tongue, Dillon peppers the narrative with many funny lines. Adding to these festivities, Stanford professor Sylvia is particularly amusing in her imperious treatment of the “guest” student Chris (Dorman has loads of fun deflating the pomposity of academia). Sylvia’s early interactions with Martin help flesh out his character, one prone to intellectual ruminations, to struggles with the implications of conformity, and to pathetic rationalizations.
The novel’s conclusion has a redemptive power that is both credible and inspirational, featuring a final unsettling story from Martin that is the worthy culmination of this thrilling work. Finding Martin Bloom is a great read that also offers so much intellectual stimulation. I highly recommend the novel.
November 11, 2019
Adventurous and Insightful
I enjoyed reading Casey Dorman’s “Finding Martin Bloom.” He wrote two intertwining narratives — one of an alcoholic writer and absent father, the other searching for the father her mother told her was dead. My only criticism is that the pop culture metaphors used my Bloom’s daughter did not ring true for the character. She was more punk or emo than pop culture.
I enjoyed reading Casey Dorman’s “Finding Martin Bloom.” He wrote two intertwining narratives — one of an alcoholic writer and absent father, the other searching for the father her mother told her was dead. My only criticism is that the pop culture metaphors used my Bloom’s daughter did not ring true for the character. She was more punk or emo than pop culture.
July 4, 2017
Five stars for its wit and erudition.
August 5, 2021
A great journey of a man...
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews