The Putnam County News and Recorder
March 1, 2006

American Family
By Robert Crooke
iUniverse, Inc., 340 pages, $20.95

Robert Crooke, a local novelist who grew up in Garrison, will be at Merritt Books on Sunday, March 5th at 2pm to present his talk titled “A Question of Loyalty,” and discuss the creation and reaction to his new work of fiction, American Family. This critically praised novel about the early 1950s in the mid-Hudson Valley towns of Garrison, Cold Spring, Peekskill, Beacon and Poughkeepsie, tells a story of the Red Scare era from the perspective of two close-knit families. The book deals with McCarthyism, racial discrimination, civil rights, political polarization and big money interests.

With its historic setting in the heart of the region where Benedict Arnold became America’s first archetype of disloyalty and betrayal, Crooke’s novel explores this country’s ongoing ambivalence toward non-conformity and dissent. American Family raises questions about why a nation born of radical thinking frequently feels a need to silence or discredit fellow citizens who question or object to intolerance, unfairness or the mere status quo.

Kirkus Reviews has said of American Family: “… Crooke manages to remain faithful to the complex and treacherous politics of the 1950s, and his characters’ moral battles, even as the mystery heats up…And the comparisons Crooke makes between the Red Scare and the post-9/11 eras are interesting and apt.”

Both Mr. Crooke and Merritt Books are celebrating the publication of American Family with a donation to the Philipstown Food Pantry. Merritt Books is located at 66 Main Street, Cold Spring. Call 265-9100 for information.