Gullboy: The Inconceivable Life of Franco Pajarito Zanpa - Hardcover

Rubenstein, Wade

2.76

33 ratings by Goodreads

9781582433301: Gullboy: The Inconceivable Life of Franco Pajarito Zanpa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1582433305 ISBN 13: 9781582433301

Publisher: Counterpoint, 2006

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Ernesto Zanpa, a beach bum who finds Franco the "Gullboy," half bird and half boy, in a seagull nest near the beach, decides against his wifes wishes to raise the boy as his own.

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Review:

(A) Chabonesque tale of genetic miracles, shyster lawyers and Internet pornography ... This is a novelist to keep an eye on. -- Julia Carlis, Ruminator, October 2005

(A) richly imagined debut novel set in Coney Island ... Paging Jonathan Livinstone Seagull! Your dream pen pal is here! -- Vanity Fair, September 2005

A great-hearted, nostalgic celebration of the Brooklyn mish-mash and a riotous commentary on the father-son relationship. -- Kirkus, July 2005

Debutant takes wing ... RUbenstein's debut...marks him out as a writer to watch. His father-son narrative is beautifully portrayed. -- Chris Power, BBC Collective, January 2006

Inconceivable is truly the word for this treasury of a tale. -- School Library Journal

Synopsis:

A month into the rocky marriage of Ernesto Zanpa and Venus Rojo - two twentysomethings stumbling into adulthood - Ernesto discovers a baby in a seagull's nest near their Brighton Beach bungalow. No ordinary baby, the boy has wing-like arms and a soft sheen of white feathers. Despite the baby's peculiarity, Ernesto is drawn to this gullboy, and decides, against Venus's wishes, to raise the founding as his own. He names the baby Franco, after his own late father, and abandons his life of loafing to support the child. Within a year, Franco grows with bird-like speed from infant to teenager, Ernesto matures from beach bum to workaholic chef, and Venus, tired of her husband's inattention and with ambitions of her own, transforms herself into an Internet porn star. Add in a reprobate attorney, a resentful cop, an overzealous surgeon, a lusty accountant, a pair of Russian mobsters, and a teenage siren named Trina, and life gets more than a little complicated. But perched at the center of this Brooklyn maelstrom where everything's slightly askew is our gullboy - an extraordinary child trying grow up in a world that won't stop staring at him.

A tragicomic story in the tradition of Kafka, Cervantes, and John Kennedy Toole, Wade Rubenstein's "Gullboy" is a story about mistaking the best in ourselves for the worst and vice versa - a heartrending novel with a hectic energy, an expansive view, and an unflinching eye.

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