Heart of the Old Country
2009
In working-class Bay Ridge, Michael drives for a car service and gives lifts to his father, a former sanitation worker and current small-time bookie. He has a friend with a heroin habit, and a longtime girlfriend who expects they'll get married one of these days. Michael spends most of his time on the familiar streets where he grew up, but now he's crossing the bridge into Manhattan for some college classes-where he meets a seductive female classmate who seems to come from a whole different world. He is pulled in two directions, but it seems like he has time to figure it all out-until he finds himself in the periphery of a murder that will change his destiny forever . . .
"Part coming-of-age story, part thriller, it's got all the ingredients for what may be a whole new genre."
- Entertainment Weekly
"McLoughlin in his first novel easily ranks with Richard Price."
- Penthouse
"Sweet, sardonic and by turns hilarious and tragic . . . Powerfully describes the bonds between Michael and his father . . . The novel's greatest achievement is its tender depiction of Michael as a would-be tough guy, trying to follow his father's dictum of 'Give them nothing,' while undergoing a painful education in the real world."
- Publishers Weekly