Through the Green Briar

Through the Green Briar is a condensed version of a longer memoir that follows the narrator over the course of approximately a decade, beginning at the age of 16, as he tries to find meaning and purpose. The setting moves from New Jersey, where the narrator grows up, to New York, where he goes to college, and Virginia, where he ultimately moves. It's a coming-of-age story without a redemptive ending. The New Jersey coast is destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, and this destruction ultimately reflects the narrator's self-destruction over the course of the narrative. And yet, the narrator learns that it is destruction that ultimately leads to creation—both in the physical world and the emotional.