In his debut novel, City of Clans, University of Pittsburgh master of fine arts grad and former Point Park professor Geoff Peck uses Pittsburgh\u2019s 2009 G-20 summit as a tonal backdrop for a millennial coming-of-age tale. We get the first-person scoop from Jeremy \u201cBig Jerm\u201d Starcevic, a recent Sewickley Academy graduate who moves in with his best bud, Scott \u201cScotty Ballgame\u201d Melloy. The son of a World Series-winning catcher for the Pirates nicknamed \u201cBulldog,\u201d Jeremy finds himself immersed in all the habits of boys his age.<\/p>\n
City of Clans succeeds less because of its pitch-perfect portrayals of young men trying to find their lanes in the adult world, and more from the conflicts that arise during the journey. From the boundaries of loyalty to the single-minded pursuit of good times, Peck is well aware of these \u201creasons to be,\u201d which seldom consider the feelings of others. Peck is also adept at showing Jeremy as someone capable of change, a character who is more self-aware than he lets on, especially around Scott and Bulldog. As the son of a jock, \u201cJeremy also understood early on that there was a code you had to live by, not just for baseball, but for being male, and that as a child, he wasn\u2019t measuring up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Male friendships are often built on the unspoken willingness to stick up for one\u2019s \u201cboys.\u201d In a crucial flashback to a basketball practice where the coach calls out Jeremy for playing like \u201ca tampon,\u201d Scott shows his mettle when an upperclassman won\u2019t let it go in the locker room. Scott wears the badge of protector with pride.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, things get balanced out when Carnegie Mellon University photography major Kat Kovacs steps into multiple scenes. Though she comes off as too \u201cbig sister\u201d to Jeremy, she also sees his potential to be something more than a sidekick of Scott\u2019s, whom she loathes.<\/p>\n
City of Clans lands the way Jeremy wants his father to understand him: \u201cI didn\u2019t want all those cliches. \u2026 I wanted the complicated stuff in there too.\u201d<\/p>\n
City of Clans by Geoff Peck. University of Iowa Press. $19.00.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In his debut novel, City of Clans, University of Pittsburgh master of fine arts grad and former Point…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-269060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}