Hank Fitzpatrick’s life is what you might expect from a man-child stumbling his way through and beyond adolescence in the late 1980s in small town Indiana: hypersexual, drunk, stoned, prone to fits of spontaneous masturbation, occasionally Catholic, and accidentally well-intentioned. His life is in perpetual conflict as he confuses sex for love, heartache for passion, desperation for honesty, and abuse for affection.Caught in the crossfire of raging hormones, bad decisions and family tragedy, Hank is just a boy not yet ready to be a man. And like many boys growing up, Hank is desperate to impress his father. The impossibly perfect patriarch of the family, John Fitzpatrick decides at age forty-two he wants to have a vasectomy reversal. Is Hank ready to be a brother again at age seventeen? What about his mother’s narcotics and gimlet-soaked uterus? A child will come of this, but not without consequences.Laura is Hank’s first true love. From their stolen nights together as high-school sweethearts to their final encounter as twentysomething adults, they never figure out how to stop hurting one another. Beth, the girl who loves Hank unconditionally, can only wait for so long before longing turns to regret. But everything will be okay as long as Hank’s best friend Hatch is there to help him exorcise his demons with a half-gallon of bourbon and a bottle of cough syrup.Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer is more than just a tribute to the last uninhibited pre-9/11, pre-Facebook generation. It’s a comedy. It’s a tragedy. It’s a love story. It’s a subversive yet empathetic, warts-and-all portrait rooted in real-life that kids will read behind their parents’ backs. And if somewhere along the way we can all share in the redemptive power of a belly dancer’s love…well, that’s okay, too.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Praise for Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer:“In the vein of David Sedaris or Chuck Palahniuk, Brian Sweany has written a tight satirical story that has you bent over with laughter one moment then wiping away the tears the next minute.” –Frank Bill at http://frankbillshouseofgrit.blogspot.com, author of Crimes in Southern Indiana and Donnybrook “Brian Sweany has re-invented the coming of age novel with Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer, a bawdy, unfiltered snapshot of adolescence. Hank Fitzpatrick, the hormonally challenged narrator of the story, has a remarkable capacity to be both nihilistic and tender—think Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas meets Leave It to Beaver—minus the literary pretense and relentless self-awareness of so many other protagonists in the canon.”–William McKeen at williammckeen.com, author of Outlaw Journalist: The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson, professor and chairman of the Department of Journalism at Boston University “For anyone who ever wonders about that guy in school who has more fun, more girls, more drinks, more sex, drugs, and rock and roll, more luck (and bad luck) of the Irish, Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer tells all. But behind every party is the hidden truth: that the world, if given time, will break your heart.” –Keith Donohue at keithdonohue.com, author of The Stolen Child, a New York Times bestseller and Library Journal Best Book of the Year “Exposing the belly of the male beast is a brave thing to do. Brian Sweany writes like an American Martin Amis, and that’s a great thing.”–Alexandra Fuller at alexandrafuller.org, author of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, a New York Times Notable Book for 2002, the 2002 Booksense best non-fiction book, a finalist for the Guardian’s First Book Award and the winner of the 2002 Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize “Exotic Music of the Belly Dancer is funny and tragic, occasionally even a warm, homespun homage-to-me-familia, but it is the dark and subversive stretches that burned deeply into my psyche and kept me turning the page.”–Sonny Brewer at sites.google.c