Our Brooklyn

When Bobby McDermott gets a phone call inviting him to a birthday party for his once best friend, Butch Kovalesky, a birthday party doctors believe will be his last, Bobby has to face the unforgivable mistake that has kept them apart for twenty years. A mistake that landed Butch in jail.

Our Brooklyn is told as a dual memoir Bobby is writing and sending to Butch, one chapter at a time, in the months after his diagnosis. Filled with coming-of-age humor, the memoir starts on the streets of Brooklyn, circa 1968-73. It covers their ambitions, hopes and dreams, along with the excitement, vulnerability and crushing heartbreak of first love. It examines the Great Divide caused by the War in Vietnam, as well as the aftermath of the war that leaves Butch damaged physically and emotionally. Most of all, Our Brooklyn is a portrait of a lifetime friendship between two men, on different tracks from the beginning, who may not get what they'd hoped for, but get what they need in the end.

Our Brooklyn is a novel that will make you laugh out loud and make you cry. It will bring these sharply drawn characters into your head and heart in a way that will make you feel like you're sitting on their Brooklyn stoop alongside people you've known all your life.