Beautiful Piece

by Joseph G. Peterson

During a deadly Chicago heat wave that s claiming hundreds of lives, Robert, who s stuck in his apartment alone, fears he s going to be the next victim. In the apartment above him lives a shell-shocked Vietnam veteran who talks obsessively about the corpses of his war experience while alternately listening to Die Meistersinger and Madama Butterfly. One day, Robert ventures forth into the searing heat to gas up his car. Immediately he encounters...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0875806295
• ISBN13: 9780875806297
• Release Date: October 2009
• Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
• Length: 206 Pages
• Weight: 0.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.5" x 8.7"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

"My fingers still smell like gasoline."

An explosive literary cocktail that suggests equal parts Nelson Algren and Flann O'Brien with a dash of Hammett! I first heard about Beautiful Piece from a friend who surfaces "from time to time" with enthusiastic recommendations from the offbeat fiction categories. Seriously, he said. You're gonna love this one -- the real deal. And so it is. Thanks, pal. Thanks, Joseph G. Peterson. And thanks, Switchgrass Books! This one's fresh from the opening paragraph. I couldn't put it down; a modernistic swirl of language, memory and desire that's ultimately existential at its core. As a matter of fact, "my fingers still smell like gasoline." In a landscape full of cookie-cutter voices and styles, Peterson's effort is refreshing, truly "alone in the heat alone." Let's raise our glasses to this unique literary vision, one that can be enjoyed on several levels, and the small, independent publishers that still make it happen -- here, here! I can hardly wait for Peterson's next book.

Alone in the Heat

This is an exceedingly good story. You ARE in the Chicago heat alone. Alone with your worries. Alone with your doubts. Your mortality. Your worth. Your inadequacies. You superstitions. Your could-have-beens. And when that small glimmer of hope arrives, you're still alone in the heat, doubting the efficacy of your small fortune. But you must act lest it slip away. And the decisions you make in the heat alone are going to either free you, or send you back to whence you came.

beautifully dark and suspenseful

A great read, sure to become a classic! Meant to be read out loud. You will find yourself re-reading the sentences as they trip off the tongue in an incredible cadence. Like reading poetry while being driven 100mph. Intense and dark. Don't start this book late in the evening--you will be up well into the night reading it!! Can't wait for the next one from this author. From a Harry Bosch gal.

Cool in the Heat

If you've ever spent a lonely summer in a strange city hanging out with the wrong crowd you will love Beautiful Piece by Joseph G. Peterson as much as I did. Read Beautiful Piece with a beer ... after Sports Center ... while listening to Tom Petty or the Red Hot Chili Peppers or Wilco... late into the evening. Beautiful Piece is a gritty, urban mystery novel and the author clearly writes about a neighborhood he knows well. It is a place of loners and knuckleheads and the women who love them ... to death. There is no doubt the guy has tended bar, worked the late shift and loved some of the wrong women. What I want to know is, with a resume like that how did he come to write such a cool novel? But the funny thing is, Beautiful Piece is actually beautful, like poetry. The paragraphs could fit inside a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song as one of Petty's tragic lyrics of love and lust gone bad. Crack another beer and the lines rush by, the Vet is talking to you from the next lounge chair over, and the impending sense of doom will make you draw the shades, check the lock, tighten the knob on the oven. Suddenly, you've had one beer too many and the language is like music playing TOO LOUD so you can't think and now YOU ARE JUST TOO HAPPY to do something REALLY STUPID. Fortunately, reality sets in and you shuffle the IPOD while the lovers suffocate on their own mistakes in the heat. Crack another beer and lament the fact that you no longer smoke while they get to smoke their lives away. Unfair! A good novel should educate the reader in some way and Beautful Piece will make you reconsider some mistakes you are about to make: If you own a gun, lock it away. Install a programmable thermostat so you can control the temperature. And stop fantasizing about your ex-lover, neighbor next door or cute office mate. Why? Because it is ALL just too dangerous ...

This Story Sticks

I had the good fortune of reading a draft of Beautiful Piece four years ago, and like the Hemingway I devoured in high school and the Thomas McGuane I read in my restless youth, Joseph G. Peterson's story stuck in my psyche and along with the powerful prose of his literary companions his first novel continues to congole me down the rutted road of contemporary American life.