A Friend of Kissinger: A Novel

by David Milofsky

Overview

Thirteen-year-old Danny Meyer's charmed life in Madison comes to an abrupt end when his concert pianist father falls ill and must give up his professorship. The family is forced to move to Milwaukee and live on the edge of poverty as his father's health worsens. Struggling with the change, Danny befriends the son of a gangster. Through brushes with a thrilling world of crime, he soon finds his way to a new confidence. A Friend of Kissinger captures a sentimental and authentic sense of place in a midwestern rust belt city, following a young man learning to make sense of the world around him. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299185244
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	09/24/2019
Edition description:	1
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

David Milofsky is a professor of English at Colorado State University. He is the author of the novels Playing from Memory, Eternal People, and Color of Law.

Editorial Reviews

"Milofsky blends these seemingly disparate characters into a cohesive narrative, much like one of Danny's mother's expressionist paintings."—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

"A top-drawer tale of a pivotal year in one boy's life."—Denver Post

"A superbly crafted mix of adult insight and boyish wonder."—Rocky Mountain News

"Milofsky's intelligent, insightful observations about children and parents, power and a teenager's 'persistent ache of sex' will transport many readers back to their own adolescent struggles."—Booklist

"Well-crafted and intelligent."—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

Milofsky, an English professor at Colorado State University and winner of the Colorado Book Award for his previous novel, Color of Law, has given us a top-drawer tale of a pivotal year in one boy's life. — William Porter

The Denver Post

Milofsky (Color of Law, 2000, etc.) returns with a coming-of-ager set in 1970s Milwaukee, the story of a young man’s emergence from the confines of a close-knit but troubled family. When Danny Meyer went back to Milwaukee for his father’s funeral, it was his first visit in nearly 30 years to the home that he thought he’d been glad to leave forever. Born in Madison, Danny moved with his family to Milwaukee as a boy when his father became ill and had to give up his post at the University. Milwaukee was a big step down for the Meyers, who had enjoyed their status as a faculty family in college-town Madison, but Danny managed to find a kindred spirit in his classmate Joey Goodstein, whose family had also fallen on hard luck when his hotshot lawyer father had been sent to prison as a racketeer. Danny does well in school, partly because he finds refuge from his father’s illness and his brother’s mental delusions by retreating to an empty storage room in the basement of their apartment building to read. He also makes the acquaintance of Anna, a Holocaust survivor who lives down the hall and dotes on him. After Anna’s husband dies, she becomes the lover of Jesús, a Guatemalan immigrant who speaks no English and got into the country without papers. Anna writes to Henry Kissinger, whom she knew as a child in Germany, asking his help in getting a green card for Jesús, and Kissinger actually replies, offering his advice and assistance. In order to straighten out his status, however, Jesús must return to Guatemala and reenter the US. Anna goes with him, bringing Danny along. Eventually, Danny wins a scholarship to a good school and ends up a happy family man in Colorado. Well-crafted andintelligent—yet lifeless and rambling: a ramble through Danny’s adolescence that has too much incident and too little focus to be engaging.

Kirkus Reviews