"Urgent, sharp and expansive...this exceptional debut is not a
cautionary tale about the perils of drugs, but it certainly is the story
of so many people right now, and it somehow leaves us with hope. What's
more, the rare if dark gems found along its ocean floors, all sharp and
brittle and made of base desire, let us glean a part of what's at the
heart of addiction itself." --Tommy Orange, The New York Times
For fans of Denis Johnson and Ocean Vuong: A captivating, searing, and
ultimately redemptive debut novel about coming of age on Florida's
drug-riddled Gulf Coast and the enigmatic connection between memory and
self
David has a mind that never stops running. He reads Dante and Moby
Dick, he sinks into Hemingway and battles with Milton. But on Florida's
Gulf Coast, one can slip into deep water unconsciously; at the age of
fourteen, David runs away from home to pursue a girl and, on his
journey, tries crack cocaine for the first time. He's hooked instantly.
Over the course of the next decade, he fights his way out of jail and
rehab, trying to make sense of the world around him--a sunken world
where faith in anything is a privilege. He makes his way to a tenuous
sobriety, but it isn't until he takes a literature class at a community
college that something within him ignites.
All Day is a Long Time is a spectacular, raw account of growing up and
managing, against every expectation, to carve out a place for hope. We
see what it means, and what it takes, to come back from a place of
little control--to map ourselves on the world around, and beyond, us.
David Sanchez's debut resounds with real force and demonstrates the
redemptive power of the written word.
