George McLeod’s easy life turns to chaos when his bodybuilder cousin Buck Root returns to Minnesota with his sexy girlfriend Joy and her mother Livia, whose sense of reality blurs into the pages of a western novel. For the first time, George understands the rage to live life to its fullest—the rage that has consumed Joy, Buck Root, and Livia. With tragicomic grandeur, Duff Brenna weaves the story of four people who come together in a cataclysmic moment of truth that tests their compassion and capacity to love.

The Altar of the Body: A Novel

Literature & Fiction

Brenna, Duff

United States

Picador

George McLeod’s easy life turns to chaos when his bodybuilder cousin, Buck Root, returns to Minnesota with his sexy girlfriend, Joy, and her mother, Livia, whose sense of reality blurs into the pages of a western novel. For the first time, George understands the rage to live life to its fullest—the rage that has consumed Joy, Buck Root, and Livia. With tragicomic grandeur, Duff Brenna weaves the story of four people who come together in a cataclysmic moment of truth that tests their compassion and capacity to love.

Moving to San Diego to settle down, part-time college student Jasper John becomes involved with the employees and regulars at the local diner, where he is tempted by former pimp troublemaker Henry Hank

The Holy Book of the Beard

Nan A. Talese

Duff Brenna is an American original, whose two previous novels have won honors and acclaim: The Book of Mamie won the prestigious Associated Writing Programs Award, and The Holy Book of the Beard was hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "engrossing and uproarious . . . nearly impossible to put down." With Too Cool, Duff Brenna has written a tale with the feel of a classic. Set against the unforgiving landscape of blizzard-swept Colorado, Too Cool begins with the adrenaline rush of a high-speed car chase. Elbert Earl Evans, known as Triple E, sixteen years old, has busted out of reform school and taken off with his girlfriend, Jeanne Windriver, in a stolen Oldsmobile. Pursued by police, Triple E and Jeanne escape by turning off onto a backroads road, where the car eventually stalls, trapping the two youngsters miles from civilization in a deadly snow storm. In a situation of growing desperation Triple E is forced to confront the violence in his nature and the acts that have brought him to the brink of destruction--from his violent street skirmishes to the scars suffered in a reform school that was supposed to rehabilitate him, but trapped him in a struggle between two influential teachers whose own dreams of glory came ahead of his development. Duff Brenna sensitively portrays the troubled Triple E as a boy grown too fast into manhood, struggling to control his explosive impulses, and discovering a vein of tenderness in his deep love for Jeanne. Gripping, disturbing, undeniably powerful, Too Cool is a near-flawless novel.

Too Cool

Teen & Young Adult

"An unfaltering, unflinching, piercing look into a tormented, youthful heart."--The New York Times In the dead of winter, in the midst of a blizzard, Elbert Earl Evans--known as Triple E--has escaped from a Colorado reform school in a stolen Oldsmobile with his girlfriend, Jeanne, his cousin, and a friend. After outrunning the police, Triple E and Jeanne find themselves alone and stranded in a stalled car. Eventually, to have any hope of survival, Triple E sets out on a desperate search for help. As he struggles through the brutal cold, Triple E reflects on his past and discovers the humanity that lies beneath his violent nature: his love for Jeanne, the pain of his father's admission that "you're not the son I wanted," and his sense of alienation from family and friends. Readers will be riveted by Triple E's battle to save Jeanne's life, and his own, as well as his internal struggle to conquer his violent impulses. Written with unsparing and evocative prose, Too Cool is an edgy, coming-of-age story with all the earmarks of a modern classic.

Action & Adventure

Plume

Told by the fifteen-year-old farmboy who is her companion, this story relates the touching and sometimes terrible existence of Mamie Beaver, a retarded young woman who is attempting to get over a legacy of child abuse and trauma

The Book of Mamie: A Novel

Univ of Iowa Pr

Jasper John arrives in San Diego on a broken-down Harley, ready to put a hell-raising and felonious adolescence behind him. He attends college part-time, but the employees and regulars at Fat Stanley's Diner become his real teachers. Along the way there's death, a good many brawls, and a valiant attempt to produce Shakespeare's most famous love story as a pornographic film - all while Jasper struggles to become a man and searches for love in a world that seems to be spinning out of control.

Literary

New American Press

Winter Tales: Men Write About Aging is a miscellaneous collection of poems, essays and illustrations from professional writers and artists expressing their thoughts on the subject of aging. Their views are filled with insight, wisdom and humor, riveting accounts that may make you sad, or make you happy, perhaps even giddy, perhaps wiser, and certainly contemplative. You may see yourself and others you know who are in the same predicament. You might find yourself smiling wryly and even laughing at times. This is a bright book of life, not death, which these wonderful (at times brilliant) artists have created. Winter Tales is a timely book, given our country’s aging population of boomers who will take comfort in knowing they are not alone when it comes to dealing with what aging is doing to their minds and bodies. Take and read. Join the camaraderie. Welcome aboard.

Winter Tales: Men Write about Aging

Serving House Books

Mesmerizing: In 17 riveting stories set in the author’s native Minnesota, Duff Brenna’s edgy tales journey from the mid-19th century to our current 21st century. While capturing the history centered in and around the cities of Medicine Lake, Golden Valley, Anoka, Minneapolis and Mankato, Minnesota Memoirs unfurl a series of unique narratives revealing a transfiguring perception of what it means to be alive in a world that never explains its quiet indifference to all things human. Called “a spectacular talent at crafting complex, believable characters” (Wall Street Journal), “a honed intelligence, unfaltering, unflinching, piercing” (New York Times) and “a master at capturing the helplessness of humans … with tough written all over them” (Los Angeles Times), Brenna’s insights into human nature show us who we are as a species and what we are capable of—our capacities for love and hate, intense desire, sanity, insanity, magnanimity, generosity of spirit and, above all, compassion.

Minnesota Memoirs

Short Stories & Anthologies

The Law of Falling Bodies

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Brenna, Duff. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Brenna, Duff

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Brenna, Duff. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Altar of the Body: A Novel

The Altar of the Body: A Novel

The Holy Book of the Beard

Too Cool

Too Cool

The Book of Mamie: A Novel

The Holy Book of the Beard

Winter Tales: Men Write about Aging

Minnesota Memoirs

The Law of Falling Bodies