My First Novel – The Hard Way

The Hard Way will be published May 2008 (Forge). It’s my debut novel and I’d classify it as literary fiction that reads like a romantic comedy. Here’s a picture of me, so you know who sat at a computer screen and strung these words together.

BACK COVER SYNOPSIS:

Lucy Venier changes careers and boyfriends as often as she changes her socks. Although gifted with wit and creativity, the one thing Lucy lacks is focus. While being someone she’s not, be it crime reporter or sleep-deprived law student, Lucy’s one constant is art. Her insatiable desire to create is fueled by her offbeat life experiences. But unfortunately by day Lucy must hide her creativity under her business suit.

As if figuring out her life isn’t hard enough, all of Lucy’s friends are getting married. But Lucy’s not sure if she’s capable of living happily ever after. With a string of loser former flames, giving up seems to be the best option. But then there’s Ben—Lucy’s Mr. Right who comes at completely the wrong time. But is he truly The One? Did Lucy miss her chance?

In the tradition of The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, The Hard Way is a scrapbook of stories from Lucy’s life. As she discovers more about the people around her, will she finally begin to understand herself?

THE REVIEWS:

Romantic Times BOOK Reviews Magazine, June 2008

At long last, a debut author has crossed our path and set it metaphorically ablaze. There’s much to love in this story, including Lucy, the complicated and lovable main character. Told in alternating viewpoints–sometimes Lucy speaks in first person, other times third, and even her older sister Nancy gets in her two cents’ worth–this device is well conceived and works brilliantly. This is the first novel to come around in a long while where the author needn’t tell us how special her protagonist is–it’s obvious just be reading these peeks into her life.

SUMMARY: Lucy has a joke for everything. That is, when she’s not painting whatever image has popped into her head or plotting her next career move or going with the flow with her latest beau. She’s not misguided; she’s merely finding her footing. She meets perfect Ben when she’s in her 20s and goes so far as to accept a proposal of marriage … but is that really what she wants in the time of her life? And will he really wait for her should she elect to take a different path? -Lauren Spielberg

Booklist Magazine, April 15, 2008

Like the novels of Melissa Bank, Luongo’s first offering is a novel-in-stories. Her protagonist, Lucy Venier, spends her twenties floundering in careers and relationships that are wrong for her. Lucy tries her hand at journalism, advertising, sales, and even law school, but none of the professions feel like the right fit for the artistic Lucy, who is most at home when painting or filling her surroundings with her creations. Her taste in men is even more misguided: she dates a feckless, unfaithful newspaper editor; an arrogant cad who magnifies her self-loathing; and an incomprehensible loser who gambles away $800 on her credit card. The only winner of the bunch is Ben, who is both charming and funny and believes in Lucy, but his proposal and their subsequent engagement feel suffocating. Though Lucy’s boyfriends aside from Ben are almost unrealistically unappealing, her sharp observations (“I’ve stopped reading women’s magazines, so I feel less and less trivial everyday”) make her a heroine worth rooting for. — Kristine Huntley

Publishers Weekly, February 5, 2008

After college, Lucy Venier’s search for happiness takes her on a bumpy but ultimately fulfilling ride in Luongo’s witty debut. Should Lucy be a Philly crime reporter, a Web content writer, an advertising whiz, or should she follow in her sister’s footsteps and go to law school? Or should she embrace her gifted inner artist? Although Lucy’s amazingly adjusted in some ways, she’s woefully behind in others. Sometimes her boyfriends—an older newspaperman who uses her for sex; an abusive recovering alcoholic and a boorish store manager who talks like a wasted rapper—lead her down some unfortunate paths. But Lucy’s irrepressible spirit helps her survive, while surprise reconnections with her sister and a former fiancé support her realization that life is an act of art-in-progress. Though it has the trappings of chick lit, this is much wiser and frequently funnier; it reads like a novel-in-stories, each piece contributing to the overall effect of a young woman coming—often roughly—into her own.

Link to read a review by Harriet Klausner at Genre Go Round Reviews.

THE BLURBS FROM AWESOME PEOPLE:

Stephanie Lessing, Author of Miss Understanding and She’s Got Issues, read it and said:

“I absolutely fell in love with Lucy. Julie Luongo is a masterful writer, nimble and quick and insanely sincere. I will from this day forward read every word she ever writes, unless of course she decides to do stand up instead. In that case, I’ll be in the front row, clapping my ass off.”

Daisy Fried, Author of She Didn’t Mean to Do It and My Brother is Getting Arrested Again said:

“These linked stories, about the years in a young woman’s life between coming-of-age and being-of-age are highly entertaining and highly intelligent, formally invigorating and emotionally satisfying. Lucy’s blunders and triumphs as she negotiates sex, love, family, and the difficulties of living a creative life, make for a terrific tale, thanks to Julie Luongo’s wit, her timing—and her big heart.”

Juliet Latham, English Professor, Temple University & Ursinus College said:

“The Hard Way is relentlessly funny and wise. Lucy stumbles over the obstacles of relationships and career and brings the reader right along with her, laughing the whole way. Julie Luongo’s wry one-liners belie a sensitive and honest story about maturity and self-awareness. Lucy is exactly what we love and hate about ourselves, and we love her all the more for pointing it out with such wit and forgiveness!”

Jason Schossler, Writer, Poet, and Creative Writing Professor, Ursinus College said:

“In ten swiftly moving stories Ms. Luongo gives us a strong female protagonist who is up to her frizzy-haired head with the tough and often grotesque complexities of love. And yet through it all our heroine never loses her sense of humor. It is her most endearing trait. I would treat Lucy to sautéed foie gras at Le Bec Fin just for the side-splitting pleasure of hearing her tell me why I’m not going home with her at the end of the evening.”

Pretty cool, huh? You want to buy it now, don’t you?