Release Date: August 17, 2021
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-57869-061-9
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-57869-071-8
LCCN: 2021907131
eBook: 978-1-57869-062-6 CLICK HERE to Purchase the eBook.
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SYNOPSIS

It’s 1968. A thirteen-year-old loner flees his abusive father and alcoholic mother for the lure of sunny California. He barely survives alone on the streets of Los Angeles, conversing with the ghost of his beloved dog and trying to avoid the police, until a fateful encounter leads him to the bohemian community of Venice Beach, known at the time as the “Slum-by-the-Sea.” He renames himself Moon, symbolizing his quest for something that will shine light on him, just as the sun illumines the moon.

Over the next two years he struggles with first loves, confusion over his sexual identity, painful rejections, drug use, and haunting flashbacks from his childhood. As cultural upheaval over the Vietnam War rages, Moon assembles a new family of his own making, only to make a shocking and unexpected discovery that upends who he thought he was.   

Venice Beach is a moving tale of the resilience of youth and the importance of reflecting on our stories.

PRAISE

“Habeeb’s engaging novel skillfully explores the dark underbelly of growing up in an abusive household and trying to choose a new family. Moon’s early life experiences are full of trauma and pain. ‘When kids run away from home,’ he reflects at the beginning of the book, ‘people try to find them and send them back. It apparently never occurs to them that kids run away for a reason, and because running away is difficult and scary that reason must be a damn good one.’ The author deftly concocts an emotionally tumultuous narrative with an array of misfits and outcasts who come together out of both necessity and love…Readers will root for the hero’s success and safety.”

—Kirkus Reviews

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“Despite the sadness that marks Moon's journey—or perhaps because of it—this book is a true delight to read. Moon's story is in many ways timeless, for it brings to life not only the joys and struggles many young people experienced in the late 1960s, but the joys and struggles they continue to experience today.”

—Sebastian Barajas, Department of Childhood Studies, Rutgers University

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“After he runs from his secret-wracked and violent family, this searchingly honest novel takes a young teenage boy — and us with him — through urban homelessness, emergency youth care, drug addiction and finally the precarious, risky chance at a cobbled-together but genuine family. You won’t forget Venice Beach.”

—Doug Wilhelm, author of Street of Storytellers and The Revealers

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“What a relief it is to see an adolescent song that does not partake of sensational rhetorical exceptionalism of some sort—speak like Twain, Salinger’s Holden’s Tourette’s—for its effect. A crime common if not endemic to the form, of which I am guilty. Venice Beach portrays sad tough boyhood, not reaching for cuddly surrealism. The story is compelling for what in it feels completely true, and not pushed or forced.”

—Padgett Powell, author of Edisto, The Interrogative Mood, and Indigo

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“Heartbreak, passion and mystery abound in this powerfully moving coming-of-age story that captures the crazy, vibrant essence of pre-gentrified Venice, a place that pulsed with creative energy. Venice Beach in 1968 proves to be the perfect place for a troubled young runaway to discover who he is and what his life is all about; a transformative personal journey that is powerful, heartbreaking, and ultimately hopeful.”

—John O’Kane, author of Venice, CA: A City State of Mind, A Venice Quintet, and Jukebox Confessionals 

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“Venice Beach is written with easy, unpretentious prose that lets shine through the authenticity of the young narrator's voice, a teen runaway who, in an attempt to reclaim and redefine his present from his brutal past, has renamed himself after his favorite celestial body. As the moon in the night sky allows us to hold the light when we are in the dark, Moon, the boy, reminds us, as he navigates the unpredictable, and often malevolent impulses of humanity, of the indomitable resilience and essential life-giving power of holding onto hope.”

—Ian Chorão, author of Bruiser

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“Venice Beach explores the intense emotions and experiences of a runaway teenage boy trying to understand and overcome a tragic family life as he makes his way into an early adulthood. In a narrative that is at times sad, at times funny, at times scary, and always interesting, Moon takes us on a rich and realistic coming-of-age journey that keeps us simultaneously wanting to know what comes next and hoping the story doesn’t come to an end.”

—Solange Ribeiro, Chief Academic Officer and Dean, Adler Graduate School of Psychology

REVIEWS & IN THE NEWS

The Sun Gazette Newspaper, August 19, 2021: New novel takes crack at coming-of-age tale

Lambda Literary, August 2021: August’s Most Anticipated LGBTQ Literature

Kirkus Reviews, August 18, 2021: An engrossing tale about fighting for survival and finding love.

Vermont Business Magazine, July 16, 2021: Montpelier publisher to release Georgetown professor's debut novel

MEET THE AUTHOR