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Suburban Boy
a novel Suburban Boy is the first novel in Peter Doobinin’s projected Long Island triology. The second book, Daylight Saving Time, was published in 2019. The Long Island trilogy offers a depiction of an essential facet of American History: the Baby Boom suburbs of the mid-twentieth century. Suburban Boy is the story of a man coming to terms with his relationship to this place which significantly formed his life and view of the world. A fast-paced novel, told in the first person, it provides a particular vision of the middle-class Long Island suburbs and the people who inhabited them. |
From Suburban Boy
“I stepped away from the bed, stepped across the room, my sneakers sliding against the sodden, mashed-down carpeting. I wasn’t all that concerned, I wasn’t all that put off by the deplorable conditions, the unappealing bed, the downtrodden furniture, the smell, the noise. I figured that I wasn’t going to stay at the South Shore for very long, for more than a few nights. I couldn’t. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. Ironically enough, I couldn’t afford to stay more than three or four nights. I couldn’t afford the $45 per night that the motel charged.
I stepped to the window, pulled apart the moldy brown drapes, pushed open the window. I figured I’d let in some fresh cold air.
I stood in front of the window. I looked out, beyond the woodplank veranda, beyond the parking lot, toward Sunrise Highway, the six-lane thoroughfare that slashed past the motel. The road was glutted with rush hour traffic, crammed with cars moving east and west. It was growing dark and most of the cars had their headlights turned on. And I stood there, and I watched the cars, moving slowly forward, the headlights burning. There was something about the whole scene. The cars lunging ahead, the lights prodding the increasing dark, the gradual movement in, the ceaseless urging, toward home. There was a poetry to it. An undeniable, exquisite poetry.
What can I say? I was, and always would be, a suburban boy, and I found stuff like this as beautiful as anything.”
“I stepped away from the bed, stepped across the room, my sneakers sliding against the sodden, mashed-down carpeting. I wasn’t all that concerned, I wasn’t all that put off by the deplorable conditions, the unappealing bed, the downtrodden furniture, the smell, the noise. I figured that I wasn’t going to stay at the South Shore for very long, for more than a few nights. I couldn’t. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. Ironically enough, I couldn’t afford to stay more than three or four nights. I couldn’t afford the $45 per night that the motel charged.
I stepped to the window, pulled apart the moldy brown drapes, pushed open the window. I figured I’d let in some fresh cold air.
I stood in front of the window. I looked out, beyond the woodplank veranda, beyond the parking lot, toward Sunrise Highway, the six-lane thoroughfare that slashed past the motel. The road was glutted with rush hour traffic, crammed with cars moving east and west. It was growing dark and most of the cars had their headlights turned on. And I stood there, and I watched the cars, moving slowly forward, the headlights burning. There was something about the whole scene. The cars lunging ahead, the lights prodding the increasing dark, the gradual movement in, the ceaseless urging, toward home. There was a poetry to it. An undeniable, exquisite poetry.
What can I say? I was, and always would be, a suburban boy, and I found stuff like this as beautiful as anything.”
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