NYC writing professor David Puretz,
releases his debut novel,
The Escapist.
LISTEN to our conversation on today's show.
releases his debut novel,
The Escapist.
LISTEN to our conversation on today's show.
ABOUT THE BOOK
When escape becomes a first line of defense, is it possible to ever face life's harsh realities? In his debut novel, The Escapist (Global City Press, January 28, 2020), David Puretz details one young man's seemingly never-ending quest for his missing father. Weaving topics like mental health, family conflict and abuse, drug addiction, and sexuality throughout a frame narrative structure, Puretz delves into the internal and external calamities that shape the human life and mind.
The only thing protagonist Billy Chute excels in is escaping. After finding that his father has escaped his own life and disappeared, Billy quits his job and sets out to find him. But what he may really be searching for is a path to free him from his past and give him a purpose and future.
More than a story of self-discovery, The Escapist takes an intimate look into the psyche of an unlikely protagonist. Billy turns to writing as he travels the country, and uses writing, in part, as a way to heal, make sense of things, and forgive. Within the narrative, he explores the adversity of family and self, desperate to create his own identity, but drug addiction and the lasting effects of past abuse take him deeper into an escape than he ever could have imagined.
"Sizzling, a brilliant work of imagination...unflinching in its depiction of our culture and political moment...with the relevance and pace of Kerouac's On the Road and the psychological brutality of Golding's Lord of the Flies."
- Michelle Yasmine Valladares, MFA Program Director at The City College of New York, author of Nortada, The North Wind, and the AMERICAS Poetry Festival's Poet of the Year.
"A perfect time in our country for the return of the anti-hero. So many young men begin an odyssey into adulthood only to find that the past, usually in the form of a father, is both the catalyst forward and the keeper of a locked gate to the future. The goal becomes not salvation but survival. David Puretz's debut novel alternates between life's realistic blows and a hallucinatory journey that may be his only route to selfhood."
- Linsey Abrams, author of Our History in New York, Double Vision, and Charting by the Stars.
"Author David Puretz has created a highly literary and poignant work that tells many tales through its single-character narrative... The Escapist is an accomplished work worthy of great praise, both for its excellent writing style and its apt perspective on our current sociopolitical time."
-- Readers' Favorite 5-Star Review
"Crisp, clear, and electrically charged, The Escapist is a burst of much needed vitality blowing through the miasma of late capitalism's nihilism and hypocrisy."
-- Brendan Kiely, New York Times bestselling author of Tradition
"The Escapist is a fast-paced novel about the miserable American road trip, sleeping outside of diners, failing to connect with hostile strangers and family members alike, and missing natural beauty for the chemical sunrise at the bottom of a pill bottle. Raising complicated questions about the nature of control, and drawing bold lines between state violence, family trauma, and self abuse, David Puretz has crafted a gut punch of a road novel for anyone who ever wondered what drove Hunter S. Thompson to drugs, and made Jack Kerouac want to leave it all behind for a dotted highway line."
- Chris L. Terry, author of the novels Black Card and Zero Fade
In an interview, David can not only discuss his own work, but also his experience as one of NYC’s premiere writing academics helping coach others pursuing careers in writing.
DAVID PURETZ EXPLORES INNER PSYCHE OF A WRITER IN DEBUT NOVEL
Publisher Global City Press premieres The Escapist
New York City – When escape becomes a first line of defense, is it possible to ever face life’s harsh realities? In his debut novel, The Escapist (Global City Press, January 28, 2020), David Puretz details one young man’s seemingly never-ending quest for his missing father. Weaving topics like mental health, family conflict and abuse, drug addiction, and sexuality throughout a frame narrative structure, Puretz delves into the internal and external calamities that shape the human life and mind.
The only thing protagonist Billy Chute excels in is escaping. After finding that his father has escaped his own life and disappeared, Billy quits his job and sets out to find him. But what he may really be searching for is a path to free him from his past and give him a purpose and future.
More than a story of self-discovery, The Escapist takes an intimate look into the psyche of an unlikely protagonist. Billy turns to writing as he travels the country, and uses writing, in part, as a way to heal, make sense of things, and forgive. Within the narrative, he explores the adversity of family and self, desperate to create his own identity, but drug addiction and the lasting effects of past abuse take him deeper into an escape than he ever could have imagined.
David Puretz is the author of The Escapist, a debut literary fiction novel exploring themes of mental health and self-discovery. He is the Editorial Director of the literary journal Global City Review and the creator and founder of the quarterly burly bird zine, which is sponsored by Fortroyal Foundation, a non-profit for the conservation and preservation of the arts. Puretz received an MFA in Creative Writing from The City College of New York and was a trailblazer for Ithaca College’s BA in Writing. Currently, Puretz resides in New York City where he teaches writing at Yeshiva University. For more information, visit https://globalcitypress.com/ or https://davidpuretz.com.
In an interview, David Puretz will discuss:
What a frame narrative is, and why he was drawn to this style for his debut novel
His experience writing short stories that evolved into this debut novel
How teaching writing has influenced his own writing
The value and the dangers he sees in using escapism as a coping mechanism
Patterns of abuse
Being at the helm of a literary start-up and writers’ collective
