Stoop to Conquer (A Tenth Ave Trip) by John Michael Bolger Francis Doonan is a “Hell’s Kitchen kid” who grew up fast on the unforgiving streets of New York, forced to abandon his childhood altogether following a series of tumultuous events in the Summer of 1980. Anything but a stereotypical “tough guy,” Francis ran with his best friends, Howie and Clayton, and the rest of their “crew,” who held court on his building’s stoop on Tenth Avenue. Pulled from all sides by the roiling turf wars of West Side gang members, the allure of the power and money of established mobsters, and simply the adolescent pressures of easy access to sex, drugs and rock –and-roll, Francis wants nothing more than just to be with the unrequited love of his life, Sandra O’ Casey, and to learn the flower business from his mentor, Benjamin Levin. Benny is a Jewish businessman, but still a fixture in the midst of a throng of Irish, Italian and Nuyorican neighborhood tensions. He is a man with a heart of gold who knew when to let his head take the lead in order for his pockets to be described as valuably. He sees much of himself in the young Doonan, so Benny takes him under his wing with assignments related to the less legitimate aspects of Levine’s business. His thought is to give Francis a taste of (and a shot at) a successful life while keeping a steady hand on the tiller down that path. Unfortunately, Fate intervenes and Francis is swept into the maelstrom churning between local Irish gangsters and downtown Italian mobsters. Coping with the pressures of life in “the Kitchen,” Francis and his friends become accustomed to the hollow comfort of quick sex in the company of acquaintances, random strangers and “working girls” alike. They even more frequently turn to drugs and alcohol to quiet their pain, and become regulars at a riverside drug den referred to with sad irony as “The U.N.,” which is run by its Secretary General, Sonny Blue. It’s not long before beer gives way to whiskey and weed devolves into angel dust and smack. When a chance encounter with Sandra’s undeserving boyfriend, Danny Albanese, ends with uncharacteristic violence, Danny’s father (a mid-level Mafioso) and his bald, British henchman known as The Duke confront Francis and the crew. Unable to exact their sought-after revenge by the arrival of the NYPD, “Johnny Rugs” Albanese sets up a boxing match between his son and Doonan to settle the score. The next day, Benny escorts Francis to the gym early to watch the famous Roberto “Hands of Stone” Duran spar for inspiration. But no one could have predicted Francis’ motivation upon entering the ring any more than they could have predicated his tragic motivation upon leaving the ring. Francis is spirited away to sanctuary in the company of Benny’s former girlfriend and an Upper East Side socialite, Karen Winthrop, while he arranges to meet with J.R. Albanese and arrange a truce. Even the peaceful serenity of Karen’s Upstate country home and the safe, easy comfort of her cannot silence the demons of addiction and loss raging in Francis’ soul. Although therapeutic, his time away from the neighborhood is short-lived. Francis is not the only person seeking out the comfort of the Stoop, though. Sandra has stopped by, looking in vain for his shoulder and sympathetic ear. She must turn reluctantly to her boyfriend, but his reaction leaves her disappointed once again, so she takes advantage of her parents’ trip out of town and looks for a distraction from her troubles at the popular nightspot, Regine’s. One as innocently beautiful and as clearly out of place as Sandra is quickly targeted by Carmen, a “club-fly” who has been hired as a procurer of girls by visiting Saudi prince. Things spiral quickly out of control as booze, drugs and lavish gifts lead Sandra back to the prince’s suite at The Plaza, into unexplored sexual territory, and then finally to an exclusive seating area at the famed Studio 54. As luck would have it, Francis has returned to The City and is drowning his sorrows at The Studio thanks to the invitations Clayton has been able to score. Fast thinking by the two friends allows them to pluck Sandra from the grasp of the prince and whisk her away to the safety of their priest’s Mahopac religious retreat so she can recuperate. It is not long, though, before desolation and the call of dependency beckon Francis to hitchhike back to New York, unaware that elements in the neighborhood have been secretly arming for violent confrontation. He discovers that he is firmly in the clutches of addiction and mired in the horrific, fiery battle between the Irish and the Italians. Despite Benny’s best efforts to give Francis a way out, he finds himself sitting on a concrete barrier one night, staring down through a drug-addled haze onto the tracks and contemplating suicide as a train races toward him. Regardless of his choice at that moment, Francis knows that whatever life he has left will be cut short on the track he’s following. Will he succumb to the tragic fate that always seems to come with the hand his situation has dealt him? Or will something completely unimaginable occur to intervene and keep his from winding up just another sad “Hell’s Kitchen kid” tale? Stoop to Conquer is the debut novel from native New Yorker, John Michael Bolger, a coming-of-age story told with gritty realism about a kid whose very existence is a gamble against the odds before a fantastical backdrop of a city defined by vice and adversity. Quite simply, it is a fresh, not-to-be-missed, page-turning epic that breaks all the rules.