Make It Nice: A novel about flea markets, drugs, smelts, and love

When a guy in a designer sweatshirt starts barking, Hank, a callow young bartender, realizes that the Maddog was right yet again: This is going to be a very weird night. It’s a full moon on the Friday just before Halloween, 1984, inside the hippest bar in Providence, Rhode Island, and things get so weird that a girl dies in the men’s room. That girl owed the Maddog $75 dollars, so he is determined to find her killer. The Maddog’s quest makes no sense, but Hank tags along anyhow, thus discovering a grown-up world of flea markets, junk shops, auctions, Italian social clubs, and marinated fried smelts. He also discovers the uncle he never had, who teaches him things about manhood his father couldn’t, such as how to razzle-dazzle and who to love.