Stan Parish was born in Texas and grew up in California and New Jersey. He attended The Lawrenceville School followed by St. Andrews University in Scotland and Wesleyan University, where he graduated with honors in 2006. He is the Deputy Editor of Bloomberg Pursuits and his writing has appeared in GQ, Esquire, Departures, New Jersey Monthly, and the New York Times. He lives in New Jersey and New York.
“Energized, ambitious…”—Michael Hainey, author of After Visiting Friends |
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“I couldn’t put
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“Raw, elegant, incisive, and above all, wise.”—Matthew Sharpe, author of You Were Wrong and Jamestown |
“Tender and perceptive…”—Alexander Maksik, author of You Deserve Nothing and A Marker to Measure Drift |
“Mesmerizing…”
—Alexander Chee, author of Edinburgh
AN EXHILARATING NOVEL OF REINVENTION, FRIENDSHIP, AND AMBITION— FROM THE JERSEY SHORE TO ST. ANDREWS IN SCOTLAND
Tom Alison has it all within his reach. He’s smart, handsome, and about to graduate from a prestigious East Coast boarding school. After that it’s off to the Ivy League and then a job on Wall Street, alongside the power brokers he’s been watching from a distance as the working-class son of a single mom. And then the very life his mother worked so hard to escape catches up with him when he gets busted selling drugs.
Lucky for Tom, there are places for boys and girls with ruined reputations. First, he returns to his roots on the Jersey Shore, reconnecting with a hard-living crew and cementing a bond with his new friend Clare Savage—the son of a re-cently disgraced financier. The two boys spend their summer surfing and partying. When fall arrives, they head to St. Andrews University in Scotland, a haven for Americans in need of a second chance and a favorite of the British ruling class. Tom and Clare escape to Scotland together, but it’s Tom who discovers a world shaped by even more powerful forces of greed and ambition than the one he left behind. Sucked into a maelstrom of sex, drugs, and status, Tom learns what it takes to break the rules—and how we can be broken by them.
Driven by a cast of young men and women living in an age of riotous prosperity, Down the Shore is an unflinching and unforgettable story of youth steeped in excess. Stan Parish has crafted a gripping novel that masterfully captures the lives of fallen financiers and the people they bring down with them—and reminds us that not even an ocean can separate us from our family, our friends, or our past.
| June 4, 2014 |
READING
Barnes & Noble
2289 Broadway
New York, NY
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| June 10, 2014 |
LAUNCH PARTY
Hotel Hugo
525 Greenwich St.
New York, NY
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| June 13, 2014 |
READING
Labyrinth Books
122 Nassau St.
Princeton, NJ
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“This smoothly written coming-of-age debut by former GQ editor Parish is filled with dynamic but flawed young characters.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[A] globe-trotting, cocaine-and alcohol-saturated debut novel about wealth, excess, debauchery, and the dream of living the good life… Ambitious… for fans of coming-of-age novels.”
—Library Journal
“Few novels have shown us inside the lives of disgraced financial titans as brilliantly as Down the Shore does. Stan Parish’s mesmerizing novel belongs in the grand tradition of the outsider who makes himself indispensable to the ruling class, learns all their secrets, and then passes himself off as one of them—as if Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley had a son he left behind in New Jersey.”
—Alexander Chee, author of Edinburgh
“Down the Shore is both a classic campus novel and an entirely fresh, fast-paced story of modern wealth and excess. I couldn’t put it down.”
—Cristina Alger, author of The Darlings
“An energized, ambitious tale of youthful excess and desire, studded with secrets and deceptions.”
—Michael Hainey, author of After Visiting Friends
“In Down the Shore, Stan Parish has written a fast-paced tale of drugs, crime and surfing, which also manages to be a tender and perceptive novel about class, family, and the tension between ambition and honor.”
—Alexander Maksik, author of You Deserve Nothing and A Marker to Measure Drift
“It is the exceptional coming-of-age novel that shows us the truth not only about its hero’s maturation, but about the singular age into which he is maturing. Down the Shore is an intimate portrait of a young man, and a sweeping story of the daunting age of global finance. Stan Parish’s debut is raw, elegant, incisive, and above all, wise.”
—Matthew Sharpe, author of You Were Wrong and Jamestown
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