Douglas Trevor

Trevor's range in this collection is moving and stylistically impressive. Whether he is writing about a family's experience during a hurricane in 1930s Key West or an English professor's close to death enlightenment about "the thin tear in the fabric of space," Trevor is serious, humorous, dark, and incisive in his approach to characters and their experiences—a true observer and chronicler of life in all its shades of grey. I look forward to reading his collected stories after familiarizing myself with his work by way of this collection.… (mer)

This is a multi-tiered love story - a man from Vermont falls in love with a homey coffee shop in Jamaica Plain (Boston) and its owners and staff. He is a Harvard grad school dropout living an aimless life with no commitments. Or so he thinks.

He meets a woman 10 years younger, another grad student, who is as high strung and compelling as Walt is mellow. Of course sparks fly between Walt and Ginger, as her restlessness translates into late night drives all over the city and discussions of the book she is writing, which bears the title of the novel.

Tragedy strikes at the coffee shop in the guise of the MS-13 street gang. Walt spins back into grad school and becomes a tutor to the a surviving child of the Early Bird Café. Ginger, needing to know the motivations of gang girls for her book and her own insatiable curiosity, approaches them for an interview.

If you love Boston, all of the familiar landmarks in their '90s incarnation, when life wasn't so good, will strike a chord in your heard. Even if you don't, the primary characters will burrow into your blood and remain quietly with you. This novel is very well drawn, characters and plot working in complete harmony.… (mer)