Publisher: Hawthorne Books

ISBN: 9780971691520

Saving Stanley: The Brickman Stories

Winner of the H.L. Davis Award for Short Fiction at the 2004 Oregon Book Awards and GLCA’s 2005 New Writers Award, Scott Nadelson’s interrelated short stories are graceful, vivid narratives that bring into sudden focus the spirit and the stubborn resilience of the Brickmans, a Jewish family of four living in suburban New Jersey. The central character, Daniel Brickman, forges obstinately through his own plots and desires as he struggles to balance his sense of identity with his longing to gain acceptance from his family and peers. In Kosher, Daniel’s disdain for his parents’ values and lifestyle, for their materialism and need for security, leads him to take a job as a telemarketer for the Robowski Fund for the Disabled, a charity benefiting two people only: Daniel and Helen Robowski. And in Young Radicals, Daniel gathers research for a thesis on early Soviet history by interviewing his grandfather, now a retiree in Florida, who painted factories and sang Communist work songs in 1920s Leningrad before immigrating to America. This fierce collection provides an unblinking examination of family life and the human instinct for attachment.

Praise for Saving Stanley

These extremely well-written and elegantly wrought stories are rigorous, nuanced explorations of emotional and cultural limbo-states. Saving Stanley is a substantial, serious, and intelligent contribution to contemporary Jewish American writing.

—David Shields, author of Enough About You: Adventures in Autobiography and A Handbook for Drowning

There’s a certain thrill in reading a young writer coming into his own. The nuances of sty le, the interplay of theme and narrative, the keen and sympathetic eye for character—all rendered new by a fresh voice and talent. Scott Nadelson’s stories are bracing, lively , humorous, honest. A splendid debut.

—Ehud Havazelet, author of Like Never Before and What Is It Then Between Us

Scott Nadelson’s fine first story collection achieves a rare balance between compassionate comedy and an unswerving attention to the dark trials of family life. Watching Daniel Brickman come of age was like watching a high-wire act: I held my breath for him, but felt the sure and steady net of Nadelson’s vision all along, keeping this boy , and his whole family , wildly alive.

—Marjorie Sandor, author of Portrait of My Mother, Who Posed Nude in Wartime and The Night Gardener

The tortuous knots of Scott Nadelson’s Brickman family make my toes curl and my breath quicken. Equally powerful with narrative and dialogue, he is a writer in full possession of both his material and his craft.

—Susan Thames, author of I’ll Be Home Late Tonight

It’s thrilling to watch a young talent reach out and grasp the essence of an art form, particularly a form as rich and nuanced as the short story . In Saving Stanley, Scott Nadelson proves, line after line, that he has mastered the discipline and the delicacy required to orchestrate his chosen medium. That he does so with grace and ease, and an eye toward entertaining the reader, is a bonus matched only by the wisdom to be found here, as the members of the Brickman family inflict a series of disappointments on each other even as they try to help each other take their disappointments lightly . Smart, funny , and heartbreaking, Saving Stanley is an uncommonly ex citing debut.

—Tracy Daugherty , author of Five Shades of Shadow and Axeman’s Jazz

Scott Nadelson play fully introduces us to a fascinating family of characters with sharp and entertaining psychological observations in gracefully beautiful language, reminiscent of young Updike. I wish I could write such sentences. There is a lot of eros and humor here—a perfectly enjoyable book.

—Josip Novakovich, author of Salvation and Other Disasters and Apricots from Chernobyl