Book review: Brewster by Mark Slouka

Sometimes the sport of running and the act of trying to run away from your problems have a lot in common. Mark Slouka’s novel Brewster takes place in the small town of that name in 1968, a year in which the world was changing, but seemingly not for teenage protagonist Jon Mosher. In a time when the Beatles ruled the radio, being drafted to Vietnam was a real possibility and “Woodstock [was] just across the river… Brewster was a different world.”

The term ‘coming of age novel’ is overused and cliché, but in this case is an accurate description of Slouka’s work. Like the Catcher and the Rye (with a slightly less frustrating protagonist) Jon Mosher navigates developing maturity as the son of two Jewish survivors of the Holocaust in a slow-burning plot revolving around the difficulty of relationships – parental, friendship and sexual. The book is addictive and the critics agree, awarding it the American Library Association’s Alex Award and a 2013 Booklist Editor’s Choice: Best Adult Books for Young Adults.

Running the race of life is another cliché metaphor, yet in Jon’s story of raw emotion and ethical impasses, fellow runners will understand the simultaneous sense of community and solitariness that draws Jon to the sport. The fact that “You couldn’t lie or talk or cheat your way in. It didn’t matter if you were cool, if you looked good in a pair of jeans, if you were popular. You could be all of those or none — it didn’t matter. You either covered ground or you didn’t,” is what compels Jon to run and many of us feel the same.

Running can be an escape from everything else happening around us. The finish line of the “race of life” is not triumphant, a gold medal and a happily ever after, but rather an unfinished intimation that the race is never over. Perhaps it isn’t a race at all, but rather more akin to a long run with friends, a stretch of sometimes seemingly unfathomable distance that one struggles against alone and a little less so with friends.

Very different from the training-oriented or motivational books that rule the expanding market of running literature, Brewster is, first and foremost, a novel. The book appeals to male and female runners alike, who are not searching for ways to shave a couple seconds off their 5K time, or learn the secrets to a stronger core, but rather for those who are interested in why they personally, and all of us, are motivated to run. Through Brewster, one may gain some insight as to what they’re running for, or from.