Steve Brezenoff Gives A Nod to Greenpoint With YA Novel Brooklyn, Burning

Author Steve Brezenoff believes he writes better about places in which he no longer lives, because time away allows him to romanticize his former dwellings and forget the boring details. His YA (young adult) novel Brooklyn, Burning, out Thursday, September 1, 2011 on Carolrhoda Lab, is a case in point. He wrote it after moving from his Greenpoint apartment in 2006 to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he lives now.

Though not yet released, Brooklyn, Burning has already been embraced by countless LGBTQ Web sites and blogs, due to its queer and gender-neutral themes. Without giving away too much of the plot, Brooklyn, Burning is a story of love and loss, and then, again, love. It is about a teenager who runs away because “no one understands.”

As he does with most of his writing, Brezenoff, the author of The Absolute Value of -1, and a children’s freelance writer, started writing Brooklyn, Burning, characters first.. Kid and Scout, the couple at the center of the story, “seemed like they could be street teens in Greenpoint,” Brezenoff said. That realization prompted him to “hit the web for some photos of [his] old neighborhood.” When he came across the story of the May 2006 Greenpoint Terminal Market fire, it became the spark for the plot: a street kid accused of arson, and the love that might be lost.

As opposed to the “full-on catharsis” he experienced writing the deeply personal The Absolute Value of -1, Brooklyn, Burning was a purely literary pursuit for Brezenoff He adds, “[Absolute Value] was, in short, the novel I had to write. I wasn’t writing a YA novel. I wasn’t writing anything in particular. I was writing strictly for myself.” Brooklyn, Burning has a completely different vibe, both for Brezenoff and for the reader. “I enjoyed writing Brooklyn, Burning. It really did feel more like writing a very long song,” Brezenoff said.

Composing this long song came naturally to Brezenoff, whose passion for music found an outlet in Brooklyn, Burning. “Music influenced Brooklyn, Burning quite a lot. It’s written in the style of an epistolary [novel], and that’s because—aside from the fact that the first line I wrote was ‘I almost kissed you once’—I wanted the book to have the vibe and universal appeal of a love song,” Brezenoff said.

For those who are fans of YA authors like Francesca Lia Block and S.E. Hinton, you won’t be at all surprised to hear that these writers hugely influenced Brezenoff’s. “Francesca Lia Block has a dirty and magical quality that I was trying to capture. And though I didn’t pick them up until I was well into revising Brooklyn, Burning, S.E. Hinton’s Outsiders and Rumble Fish—which I read as a teen—were definitely influential. I don’t think I would have guessed it, but it’s unquestionable when you see the results,” Brezenoff said.

Brezenoff is currently working on a book set in St. Paul, Minnesota. Until that one is completed and published, be sure to snag a copy of Brooklyn, Burning. For more information about the author, check out his personal Web site: www.stevebrezenoff.com.

Largehearted Lit with Libba Bray, Steve Brezenoff, and Alicia Jo Rabins
Sunday, September 25 · 7:00pm – 8:00pm
WORD – 126 Franklin Street

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