Old Newgate Road, Keith Scribner
Old Newgate Road, Keith Scribner
List: $20.00 | Sale: $14.00
Club: $10.00

Old Newgate Road
A novel

Author: Keith Scribner

Narrator: Ari Fliakos

Unabridged: 10 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/08/2019

Synopsis

Old Newgate Road runs through the tobacco fields of northern Connecticut that once drove the local economy. It’s where Cole Callahan spent his youth, in a historic white colonial in which he hasn’t set foot in thirty years—not since he was a teenager, when one night his father murdered his mother in a fit of rage. Now Cole has returned to discover his elderly father, freed from prison, living alone in their old home and succumbing to dementia.

Matters grow even more complicated when Cole’s rabble-rousing son Daniel is expelled from high school. So Cole summons Daniel to Connecticut to work in the tobacco fields—Cole’s own job growing up. Forced together, these three generations of men must contend with the sinister history they share—and desperately try to invent a future that isn’t doomed by it.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Donna on August 03, 2019

I fucking love this book. I received an advance reader’s copy free courtesy of Net Galley and Doubleday, and I am late with my review, but it’s not too late for you. This dark, brooding tale of family secrets that intertwine with the present is both a literary gem and a deeply absorbing read. It’s f......more

Goodreads review by Marjorie on December 26, 2018

Cole Callahan is returning to his home town after thirty years. He needs some chestnut wood from an old tobacco shed they’re tearing down there to use in his home restoration business. He hasn’t been back since his father killed his mother in an angry rage. When he stops by the old house, he couldn’......more

Goodreads review by Laurel on December 18, 2018

Cole Callahan grew up in Connecticut, working summers in the tobacco fields and spending every spare minute with his girlfriend, Liz. It sounds like your typical and idyllic high school existence, except for one difference; his parents fight constantly and in one final fight his father kills Cole’s......more

Goodreads review by Dennis on March 21, 2019

One of the most honest and vulnerable and real novels I've read. It's painful to read because of the trauma that lies at the heart of it, but the work is such deeply necessary work. This book goes full on into the breach.......more

Quotes

“Old Newgate Road is very much about abuse: its sway over time, its resilience over the years and its power over us to delude ourselves. Yet Keith Scribner also reminds us that salvaging a life . . . ‘doesn’t happen in an instant — it’s not a simple decision, but an accumulation of generous acts, of kindness and taking care.’”—Steven Whitton, The Anniston Star
 
“With extraordinary tact [and] alive with activity . . . vivid, memorable . . . [an] affecting novel about taking steps to move on from trauma.”—Claire Hopley, Washington Times
 
“Events and emotions long buried are unearthed, a home and childhood filled with rage, fear, violence and trauma are explored. Old Newgate Road shows us that one can escape from a broken home, but the shackles of abuse remain tightly in place.”—Albie Yuravich, Connecticut Magazine
 
“Old Newgate Road is a complex and introspective account of one family's plight of abuse and heartbreak that plagues each member for decades. Is there a possibility that long ago hurts can be mended and existing ones healed? Highly emotional, this novel offers much food for thought.”—Nancy Carty Lepri, New York Journal of Books
 
“With psychological insight and a layer of suspense, Scribner artfully illuminates his hero balancing fiercely ambivalent feelings about his father with his own domestic problems involving his estranged wife and defiant teen-age son in Portland, Oregon.”—The National Book Review

“Old Newgate Road is a wonder—a book that manages to break your heart on one page and lift you up on the next. It’s a wrenching meditation on time and forgiveness, filled with both suspense and tragedy, while presenting the possibility of renewal and redemption.”—Ivy Pochoda 

“A bracing, knotty exploration of abuse and its impact across decades. . . . Scribner writes beautifully about [these] hills and tobacco fields, with grace and a fine eye for detail. The novel’s real turf, though, is the bleak emotional territory of abuse, and [here he] writes with brutal intensity . . . drilling deeper into ever darker material [until ending] on a redemptive note.”—Kirkus 

“This gripping saga draws out themes of masculinity, sublimated trauma, and physical violence-- speaking to the ways people fashion narratives out of troubled pasts to survive, resulting in a probing, tightly-plotted novel.”—Publishers Weekly

“Old Newgate Road is a complex and introspective account of one family's plight of abuse and heartbreak that plagues each member for decades. Is there a possibility that long ago hurts can be mended and existing ones healed? Highly emotional, this novel offers much food for thought.”—Nancy Carty Lepri, New York Journal of Books
 
“With psychological insight and a layer of suspense, Scribner artfully illuminates his hero balancing fiercely ambivalent feelings about his father with his own domestic problems involving his estranged wife and defiant teen-age son in Portland, Oregon.”—The National Book Review

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List