Brooklyn, NY -- (SBWire) -- 11/12/2012 --While viewed around the world as a haven of class and culture, Roof Alexander’s latest novel proves that Williamsburg, Brooklyn is far from ideal. Taking readers deep into the city at a time of progress and change, ‘To Be Heard’ offers a fictional glimpse into what is a very real reality.
Synopsis
“To Be Heard is a recollection of a very recent lost time and place, depicting the transitional year of 2006 in the lives of four young aspiring artists and their rapidly changing neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This is a story about identity and how territory and friends shape who we become.
This is the first modern novel depicting the New York City neighborhood of Williamsburg Brooklyn. The story focuses on the year in the life of four artists, a writer, painter, poet, and indie-rocker, along with one Delbert Peach, seasoned barfly philosopher and all around saint to the hipsters. Throughout the year they use art and drinking and drugs to help define themselves and their surroundings. Each tries to find their way in the world that doesn't necessarily adapt to the old artistic lifestyles.
Yet, if there is a place in this world, it is their neighborhood, and if there is a time it was this pivotal period. The time and place are beyond everything else, important. It has been compared to the brief years of the Lost Generation in Montparnasse, Paris and to the Beat Generation in North Beach, San Francisco.
All these things must come to an end and the book relays the sentiment that it's important to recognize these times and the ghosts that stay after the period is gone.
“The year is 2006 in Williamsburg Brooklyn when the change in hip went from aspiring artists, designers, and musicians to a generalized style that created a sub-culture of taste more than ambition. Now, from all over the United States to Japan to Sweden, the neighborhood has come to represent this ideal, even though this ideal is fading quickly,” Alexander explains.
Continuing, “The book poses many questions, such as what does it mean to be an artist in this generation as the label of hipster is placed upon any and every person who is looking to do something different than the mainstream? With worldwide media and social networks mixing with humans attempting to somehow be different, where does one find their identity?”
Since its release, the book has garnered a consistent string of rave reviews.
“I couldn't put it down. Read it in two days, even though it isn't an "easy read." It is brilliant in the simplest ways. Making amazing narrative look easy. The story at its basic is about friends in the hipster neighborhood of Williamsburg working their way through a year of art and drugs and drinking. In between that is a multitude of objective philosophy and history and emotion. This is a generation defining book,” says Kay, who reviewed the book on Amazon.
Another reader, George Henry, was equally impressed - “Great read. Full of wit and wisdom via Delbert Peach against a naive group of artists in the new Brooklyn. Well written and accurate to the generation.”
With the potential to be an instant cult classic, Alexander captures an important time and place with beautiful narrative, history, and true feeling.
‘To Be Heard’, published by Allweareis Publishing, can be purchased directly from Amazon: http://amzn.to/RHU8Iq
About Roof Alexander
Roof Alexander is a literary fiction writer from Brooklyn, NY. He is also the author of the short story collection They Always Leave.
