Forget the title for a second, cause I know what your thinking. It’s actually an album title by Mohammed El-Bakkar who released several Arabic albums in the US during the 1950s. You learn that during the beginning chapters of the book, but I figured we could get squared away since the title is a little distracting.
That doesn’t mean that this book is without its explicitness. Being the newest title released from the famous publishing house (The Writer’s Coffee Shop) who had brought the world Fifty Shades of Grey, The Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer by Brian Sweany is just as daring. Though beyond the vulgarities and the rather adult interactions (most of which are between underage characters), there is a emotional rawness to the book that clings to you. I’m not quite sure if it is my age or the fact I grew up in the Midwest and the experiences in the book are so familiar that they could have happened next door, but I went from teetering on the edge of the book to falling right into it.
Hank Fitzpatrick is your typical man-child stumbling his way through and beyond adolescence in the late 1980s in small-town Indiana. He’s hypersexual, drunk, stoned, prone to fits of spontaneous masturbation occasionally Catholic and accidentally well-intentioned. His father casts a perfect shadow over him. His mother is a pill-popping flake. His best friends lives on bourbon and cough syrup. His girlfriend will either break his heart or save his life. And his godfather lingers in the shadows as Hank’s greatest teacher.
At points you really hate Hank, you pity him, sympathize or empathize with him and then all at once you fall in love with the character without knowing it. As Hank says, “.. the whole idea of drowning in the idea of someone, and what’s worse, not knowing you’re drowning until you’re underwater and you open your mouth to take a breath..” You stop to breath partway through the book and realize you can’t because you just have to know if Hank is going to be okay.
There’s a large generation of us that grew up in the 80/90s, pre 9/11 and before Facebook took over the world that lived and experienced life much differently than now. There were a lot of good things back then and there were a lot of things many of us probably regret or at least never speak about. We’re all stained with our imperfections and how we deal with life, looking back through the window of The Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer is like looking back inside the lock-box we’ve kept secret all these years in becoming better people. It shocks you out of the stupor of the year of 2013 and brings you back in time, through the eyes of a screwed-up teenager that stumbles his way through life scarred with his own mistakes.
This is Brian Sweany’s first novel and part of a trilogy. He’s the Director of Acquisitions for Recorded Books, the world’s largest publisher of unabridged audiobooks. He’s a husband, a father of 3 children and amusingly has a husky/border mix named .. guess what…. Hank. He’s currently working on Making Out with a Blowfish, the sequel to The Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer and I am very much looking forward to his next novel!
This book may not be for everyone, it is certainly not for those that desire a more implicit book style, but like its title, one should take a second look. Deep down inside of The Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer is a lonely heart, bruised and lost, finding his way into manhood without the right road map and a very detailed soundtrack to life.
Purchase: The Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer by Brian Sweany will be available April 25th, 2013.
