Brooklyn Boy
by
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Little Brian met her at the bus stop up near Prospect Park and walked her home. They often stopped for a Coke. They had enough money for two Cokes, but they always bought just one and drank it with two straws. She surprised Little Brian when he told her what Brother Carroll had said. She knew what a polymath was! “How did you know that?” he asked. “Everyone knows that,” she answered. “Just kidding. I read a book last year about Leonardo Da Vinci, and the author said that he was considered a polymath, and the author explained what that was. So I’m dating another Leonardo Da Vinci,” she kidded. “I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, “but you can….” She punched him in the shoulder, laughed and said, “Que’ persona engreida tu eres.” “What does that mean?” he asked rubbing his shoulder. “That hurt by the way.” “It was meant to! It means ‘you are conceited’ and deserve to get hit.” He was still rubbing his shoulder. “Do you want me to kiss it?” she asked. “Yeah,” he said. “In your dreams, engreido,” she said, but she gave him a little peck on the shoulder. “Feel better?” “All better,” he said.
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About the Book
It is 1945 in Long Beach, New York, when three-year-old Brian Farley receives the scare of a lifetime. As little Brian bounces on his father’s stomach in a second-floor bedroom of their summer house, his father suddenly loses his grip, sending Brian out through the screen window and onto the sand below. As the summer house, normally a place of peace and respite, disrupts into chaos, little Brian has no idea that this particular event is just one of the many escapades he will experience growing up as an Irish Catholic boy in Brooklyn and Long Beach. Brian embarks on a memorable coming-of-age journey as the Farleys spend their winters in a borough that’s undergoing many changes—the influx of Puerto Ricans, neighborhood deterioration, and the desertion of the Brooklyn Dodgers—and their summers in paradise at their grandparents’ summer home. As Brian matures and falls in love with a beautiful, Puerto Rican classmate, only time will tell if their relationship will survive his mother’s judgment and the shifting demographics of Brooklyn. But it is only after the family matriarch suddenly dies that everything Brian has ever known suddenly changes. In this compelling story, as a Brooklyn boy matures into adulthood amid a warm, loving, and sometimes conflicted New York family, he soon discovers he is responsible for his own happiness.
About the Author
Jim Farrell, born and raised in Brooklyn when the Dodgers still reigned there, began writing Brooklyn Boy as a young Vietnam vet and finally completed it in 2013 after making a promise to his firstborn grandson. Jim and his wife, Marianne, are retired and residing in Palm Coast, Florida.