Tom Lynch

Local author Joseph Suglia's "Years of Rage," his debut novel commenting on the cultural and social atmosphere that surrounds America's pitfall into school shootings, works as both a controversial piece of fiction and an educational look into the alienated mind. He uses a would-be teenage murderer as his narrator, and the haunting effect raises more questions than it provides answers. Suglia's dive into the head of a disaffected youth surfaces a few too many stereotypes--the resented father figure, the jocks, the idiotic Marine-reject gym teacher--but maybe that's important, maybe we need to be reminded of the pop psychoanalytic spew that tells us why children are drawn to guns, why they choose to end their lives and the lives of others as a way of getting back at a world that slaps the wrists of Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor followers. Sure, it was the music that made them do it. But even if "Years of Rage" becomes slightly heavy-handed in its simplicity, the book stays with you for a long time.

Joseph Suglia reads from "Years of Rage" on May 14 at Quimby's, 1854 West North, (773)342-0910, at 8pm. Free.

(2005-05-10)

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