Emma Strunk

by Tony Nesca

Emma Strunk is a novel-in-poetry about a group of downtown, core-area dwellers taking place in the fictional town of peg zero, and the lives they lead through addiction, wandering, love and sex. From Laura the goth crack-head, to Reggie the Barbados immigrant turned small time criminal, to the drug dealing Bob and many others, Emma Strunk takes you through an uncensored, desperate, emotional, humorous, gut-wrenching and sometimes surreal wild trip of late-night-ghetto-living, and the struggles and small triumphs that ensue. Written in free-form verse, Emma Strunk is a singular and important work from the pen of underground writer Tony Nesca.

201 pages, Paperback

First published March 18, 2011

About the author

Tony Nesca was born in Torino, Italy in 1965 and moved to Canada at the age of three. He was raised in Winnipeg but relocated back to Italy several times until finally settling in Winnipeg in 1980. He taught himself how to play guitar and formed an original rock band playing the local bars for several years. At the age of twenty-seven he traded his guitar for a Commodore 64 and started writing seriously. He has published six chapbooks of stories and poems, five novels, two books of poetry and has been an active contributor to the underground lit scene for ten years, being published in innumerable magazines both online and in print. He currently resides in Winnipeg and shares a house with his wife, his teenage nephew and his mother.

Reviews

[Joseph Spuckler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emma Strunk by Tony Nesca is a novel written in verse about life in "peg zero."  Nesca was born in Torino, Italy in 1965 and moved to Canada at the age of three. He was raised in Winnipeg but relocated back to Italy several times until finally settling in Winnipeg in 1980.

Peg Zero is a semifictional Winnipeg and a Winnipeg without any "win." The collection of poems strike many cords and possible influences. There is the grittiness of Herbert Selby Jr. The drug-induced frenzy of Lou Reed and, too, a bit of the wild side. There is also the looming dread of the future from a Joe Strummer London filled with squatters. There is that feeling that many who grew up in the big cities in the 1970s remember -- some nostalgic and some foreboding. It is real and not the sugar-coated sitcom of "Good Times". Nesca captures that feeling through the lives of several characters all trying to survive knowing the future is bleak.

Our narrator leads us through the lives and relationships of several intertwined characters. Reggie is from Barbados:

he be cruising the streets
with pirate sensibilities lives
at a whorehouse surrounded by
tits and ass all funky pearls
now it’s true he’s a junky
it’s true he’s a hustler
it’s also true he doesn’t give a shit about me or
you

Laura is trying to make it work with Mike they both hit the pipe and she works as a dominatrix and hooks to make ends meet. Bob sells crack. Timmy is from Greece; sensitive, intellectual, but abused. Tracy is a junkie and hooker in an abusive relationship with Bob. Destiny is a native of Manitoba who fell into Peg Zero. Finally, Emma Strunk is perhaps the patron saint of Peg Zero. A rather mystical person who may be an ideal or just imaginary.

Emma Strunk is a brutally honest look at inner-city life.  Although dark there are moments of light like Mike and Laura in the park two weeks free of crack and planning for a better tomorrow.  Peg Zero, however, is much like a singularity.  A black hole that the residents circle on the event horizon.  Unable to escape the gravity, they exist in a limbo knowing the only way out is through the black hole and no one survives that trip. The verse adds to the feel much like lyrics add to a song.  Although dark and even depressing at times the reader will be drawn into the story and the characters.  It is an immersion into life in Peg Zero and the reader will feel compelled to follow.