Please Don't Come Back from the Moon - by Dean Bakopoulos (Paperback)

About the Book

In this haunting debut novel, Michael Smolij and his friends are unable to leave the blue-collar Detroit neighborhoods abandoned by their fathers. They stumble through their teens into their 20s until the restlessness of the fathers blooms in them, threatening to carry them away.

Book Synopsis

"Families, heartbreak, political and social comedy-there is little that Dean Bakopoulos doesn't grasp in an articulate, wittily perceptive, and soulful way, before he hands it back to the reader as literary art. Please Don't Come Back from the Moon is an original and brilliant first work of fiction." -Lorrie Moore

The summer Michael Smolij turns sixteen, his father disappears. One by one other men also vanish from the blue-collar neighborhood outside Detroit where their fathers before them had lived, raised families, and, in a more promising era, worked. One man props open the door to his shoe store and leaves a note. "I'm going to the moon," it reads. "I took the cash."

The wives drink, brawl, and sleep around, gradually settling down to make new lives and shaking off the belief in an American dream that, like their husbands, has proven to be a thing of the past. Unable to leave the neighborhood their fathers abandoned, Michael and his friends stumble through their twenties until the restlessness of the fathers blooms in them, threatening to carry them away.

This is a haunting, unforgettable novel for anyone who has ever been left longing.

From the Back Cover

ADVANCED PRAISE FOR PLEASE DON'T COME BACK FROM THE MOON
"A beautifully smart, comic, and moving narrative about the fathers who disappear and the sons who take their place, Please Don't Come Back from the Moon is somehow both realistic and visionary . . . This is a wonderful book."--Charles Baxter, author of The Feast of Love
"Families, heartbreak, political and social comedy--there is little that Dean Bakopoulos doesn't grasp in an articulate, wittily perceptive, and soulful way, before he hands it back to the reader as literary art. Please Don't Come Back from the Moon is an original and brilliant first work of fiction."--Lorrie Moore, author of Birds of America
"Please Don't Come Back from the Moon is a pitch-perfect debut by a fine young novelist. Dean Bakopoulos makes his indelible mark on the coming-of-age novel."--Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

Review Quotes

"A beautifully smart, comic, and moving narrative about the fathers who disappear and the sons who take their place, Please Don't Come Back from the Moon is somehow both realistic and visionary . . . This is a wonderful book." -- Charles Baxter

"Families, heartbreak, political and social comedy-there is little that Dean Bakopoulos doesn't grasp in an articulate, wittily perceptive, and soulful way, before he hands it back to the reader as literary art. Please Don't Come Back from the Moon is an original and brilliant first work of fiction." -- Lorrie Moore