The Long Haul [Paperback]

Stern's slim debut, centered on the tumultuous six-year affair between a needy, self-absorbed young musician referred to only as "the Alcoholic," and the unnamed, enabling narrator, paints a rich picture of mid-1990s undergraduate and postcollege anomie. Details of the Gen-X experience-drinking at dive bars; going to rock shows attended by a "United Nations" of "fraternity brothers, sorority sisters, punks, skater kids, techno freaks"-are cleanly rendered, and Stern's tone is a spot-on mix of nostalgia, sympathy and ennui. The story begins with the Alcoholic, a locally successful musician, self-destructing on stage at the unnamed college he and the narrator attend in upstate New York, a victim of his own drunken melodrama. The narrator blames herself-as she will continue to do throughout the novel-convinced that her fib about a former love caused his meltdown. Her slow slide into a depression caused by the Alcoholic's superficial, controlling love, and the Alcoholic's overwhelming need for validation are the forces that drive the narrative. Juxtaposing the couple's life upstate with their later days in New York City, Stern shows the dysfunctional relationship in its moments of light (the first blush of affection; an ill-conceived nighttime quest for a corkscrew) and darkness (fighting; a miscarriage; an attempted rape). Though the narrator is sometimes frustratingly passive, she is also articulate and skillful at telling her own sharp, dark coming-of-age story.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

""Amanda Stern has rendered a powerful impression of confusion, ambivalence, regret, rage, and occasional bliss with an exactitude that is, itself, funny and endearing."

"The Long Haul is about a frozen relationship between a college-aged alcoholic ("The Alcoholic") and his codependent girlfriend (the protagonist whose name is never mentioned). Shifting between upstate New York and New York City, the story follows the trajectory of the couple's doomed six year relationship in a milieu reminiscent of "Jesus' Son and Buffalo 66. The Alcoholic is a small--town musician-a shiftless, disturbed, yet oddly gentle and pathetic figure; he demands fealty and receives it from his girlfriend, who sees no choice but to stick with him for "the long haul." In an effort to find their way in the world, the two drive through an ice storm, kidnap an abandoned girl, break into a house, make and break the same promises, uncover the futile existence of lost causes, forsake their own needs--but not even an attempted rape on the grounds of a prestigious liberal arts college is enough to snake the protagonist flee. Instead she turns with the Alcoholic toward New York City As the solace they once offered each other turns bitter, these two addicted youth find that to survive they will need to cut. loose. But they soon find it is easier to destroy oneself than to destroy what one loves.