Frank

by Joseph Gibbs

..one of the best coming of age novels I have ever read. It is sensitive, funny, insightful and moving. Both Frank and Brogan will live on in your readers' imagination. And the ending is pitch perfect- Doris Kearns Goodwin (Pulitzer Prize winning historian)


Every family has their hidden crackpot...




For 17-year-old Brogan, it was Uncle Frank. In the mixed imagination of family lore, Frank was known as a chronic gambler, self-proclaimed philosopher, prodigious alcoholic, and an innate con artist. Yet, Brogan knew him only for his birthday cards. They arrived every year, not always on his birthday, with the distinct trace of a gasoline smell, accompanied by a $10 check that Brogan was never allowed to cash, plus Frank's words of advice that ranged from profane to the sublime.

Two days shy of his eighteenth birthday, Brogan awakes on the morning of Thanksgiving break to find that his estranged Uncle Frank is waiting at his doorstep. Haunted by the recent suicide of his best friend, Brogan is seduced by the mystery of Frank, a man he has never met, and his life of risk and abandonment. He agrees to a road trip - not sanctioned by his parents - that will take them from New Jersey to Key West, Florida.

Brogan's future is promising. The best student in his prestigious New Jersey preparatory school, he has recently accepted a full academic scholarship to MIT. But Brogan will discover Frank's world of misfits and mobsters, including Bogota, an enormous ex-mobster transvestite that could rip apart a freight train. Frank's life threatens everyone around him and exposes the hardship of tangled family relationships and the lies and secrets we keep to protect others.

FRANK is a combustible, darkly comic, and intriguing mix of the deadpan ferocity of an underworld chronicle that we see in works like Denis Johnson's Angels and Donald Ray Pollack's The Devil All the Time, with the distinct, surreal touch of David Lynch, if he had ever taken a four-day road trip to Key West.

255 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 1, 2023

Reviews

[Cheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't say exactly what I love about this book but I do love it. The characters talked in riddles a lot, which was part of their personality and mystery. But it made it a bit difficult to get the gist of what they were getting at sometimes. But I couldn't help but love them all and really want to find out where they were going to end up and what would happen. It was beautiful and sad and funny.

[Jbbasketball10 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. The characters were charming and endearing in their own ways throughout this coming of age novel. I appreciated the layers of depth as Brogan learns more about his family, especially his estranged Uncle Frank. I’d recommend with caution as there were distracting publication errors (punctuation, grammar, etc.). Overall, I was impressed with the descriptive writing, with a compelling story fit for screenplay.

[Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

When high school student Brogan’s uncle Frank shows up the day before Thanksgiving asking him to spend the day with him, little did he know the ‘little’ trip would last for days, and involve personalities and escapades in various states, some hilarious and others heartbreaking. FRANK is entertaining, earnest and endearing.

[Arthur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth reading.

[Brian Rothbart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. The only fault I had with it was that Brogan seemed a little green and clueless for such a smart 17 year old.

[Sarah Weinberg-Scalo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed this road trip journey with some grittiness, and twists I didn't see coming.