As a child growing up in various cities and towns, Britt Rutgers exhibits both acute sensitivity and an insatiable ebullience that expresses itself in rebelliousness against his restrictive parents. But something profoundly important is missing deep inside. As he moves into his late teens in the 1950s on a farm near Mayfield, Iowa, his enthusiasm gradually morphs into agonizing self-consciousness, feelings of guilt, embarrassment over sexual naïveté, and fear wrought by his fundamentalist religious upbringing. His parents have always worshipped the ground that his quietly serious older brother walked on, and Britt begins to emulate him, altering his natural personality. Battling these internal demons, Britt is unable to concentrate and becomes panicky that he will fail his school subjects.
In his senior year in high school, Britt spends an evening bowling with his buddies. Something happens on that fateful Saturday night, and he is about to enter a world of terror.
Breaking Out explores a family’s dynamics and history, revealing the forces that shape a child and make a train wreck of his crossing from adolescence into childhood.
Carol Hoyer, Ph.D., Reader Views –
Author Bob Brink has written an exceptional book about a young boy who grows up in the 1950s in Mayfield, Iowa … The author has an exceptional talent in letting readers experience … his family’s dysfunction (and its effect) on a young child … One can tell the author has a passion for his writing and portrays that in his vivid description of characters and settings.
Kirkus Discoveries –
The author’s subtle, well-observed rendering of Britt’s illness makes for an interesting psychiatric case study … The novel comes alive when it looks back to an older generation of Britt’s relatives; in this gripping section, rural Iowa becomes a quiet circle of hell that drives one Dutch Reformed farmer’s wife after another to insanity.