Once You Go Back: A Novel
By (Author) Douglas A. Martin
Seven Stories Press,U.S.
Seven Stories Press,U.S.
1st August 2011
United States
General
Fiction
FIC
Short-listed for Lambda Literary Award 2010
Paperback
208
Width 139mm, Height 202mm
183g
From the author of Branwell, a novel about the Bronte brother, comes his new semi-autobiographical novel about growing up in a strained working class household in America's South. In his inimitably elliptical and evocative style, Martin carefully brings out the curiosity of children on the verge of discovering their own sexuality and their confusion in the midst of family violence.
The training wheels come off in Douglas A. Martin's latest novel,Once You Go Back, a coming-of-age tale that pedals through the trappings of childhood and adolescence with grace Martin's intense, unhindered prose style renders his characters' degrees of growth and alienation all the more powerful. Time Out New York
A gripping story about trust, family, loneliness, and displacement This novel is for anyone who ever felt lonely, for anyone who ever felt like they did not belong.Kristina LePage,Adirondack Review
A poignant and semi-autobiographical novel Martin's highly poetic writing style is an example of high-brow literature in its prime. Feminist Review
There is a reverence in Douglas Martin's writing composed of equal parts language and love. Dale Peck
Lonely, understated and heart-breaking,Once You Go Backwill haunt you like a familiar face that has emerged and then fallen back into a dream. Mary Gaitskill
[Outline of My Lover] is full of hard-won, fraught, unsparing emotional truth. It is a love story between a raw and damaged boy-narrator and a famously mysterious rock star. But more than that, it is a piece of stylish and ferociously sharp prose. I love its fierce concentration and levels of obsession. Colm Tibn
DOUGLAS A. MARTIN is the author of Branwell; Outline of My Lover (selected by Colm Toibin as International Book of the Year in The Times Literary Supplement); They Change the Subject, a book of stories; and In the Time of Assignments, a book of poetry. Born in Virginia in 1973, and raised in Georgia, he now lives in New York City.