Sure, his IQ is off the charts, but that doesn’t help much when you’re growing up in the 1980s in a dreary New Jersey town where your bad reputation precedes you, the public school system’s written you off as a lost cause, and even your own family seems out to get you.
But it’s not all bad. Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett have taught Huge everything he needs to know about being a hard-boiled detective... and he’s just been hired to solve his first case.
What he doesn’t realize is that his search for the truth will change everything for him.
Fuerst’s small-time detective and his whodunit mystery delivered me straight to readers' heaven... Huge's narrative voice swings seamlessly from snappy wiseguy cant to philosophical musings, pre-teen naïveté and savvy smarts without losing the essence of the boy's character... An unlikely combo of pulp PI-wit plus 19th Century transcendentalism contributes to Eugene's uber-unique charm. (Reviewed by Donna Chavez).
People Magazine
Fuerst's debut is a hugely entertaining novel... Juxtaposing Huge's preteen angst with his passion for detective work, Fuerst has created a winning protagonist (who needs to have his mouth washed out with soap).
Publishers Weekly
Fuerst demonstrates...skill at conveying a child's-eye view of the world that is full of nostalgia, humor, candor and emotions that all readers can relate to.
Kirkus Reviews
Credible and engaging, [with] a hero who assumes the most eye-catching characteristics of Holden Caulfield, Phillip Marlowe and Nick Twisp.
Booklist
Starred Review. Huge will occupy a, yes, huge place in readers' affections and memories.
Ron McLarty, author of The Memory of Running
A rocket ship of adolescence. I loved little Huge.
Keith Donohue, author of The Stolen Child
An evocative black comedy…Huge effortlessly lures you into his hardboiled imagination and completely dysfunctional life.
JF: I hope no one is terribly disappointed by this, but Eugene "Huge" Smalls isn't based on anyone in particular nor is he a composite of characteristics drawn from real people (at least no real people I know or have known). He is, however, pretty explicitly cut from the cloth of fictional hard-boiled detectives such as Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe and Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade, among others, and he's also a kid, a somewhat precocious, almost-thirteen-year-old kid who has problems, a foul mouth, has experienced his share of difficulties and is trying to figure out not only who vandalized the sign at his grandmother's retirement home, but also where he stands in the small town pecking order of things before he begins junior high in two weeks. So, I've always thought of Huge's character as mostly an attempt to...
A celebration of nonconformity; a tense, emotional tale about the fleeting, cruel nature of popularity--and the thrill and inspiration of first love. Ages 12+
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(1180 words).
Ron McLarty, author of The Memory of Running
BB: Is Eugene based upon anyone in particular?
