Going to Patchogue
Thomas McGonigle
With a new afterword by the author
2024

"[An] unconventional but unexpectedly moving novel. Like Joyce, [McGonigle] elevates his wandering consciousness to the stature of ironic hero, his quest becoming a monologue of silence and exxile powered by the cunning of creativity. . . . He must be read slowly. The effort is rewarding, In the end, McGonigle's novel leaves the deep impression of lasting achievement."
— Robert Chatain, The Chicago Tribune

"A touching but puzzling novel . . . in its depiction of place the novel sprouts wings, With a kind of fond revulsion, Mr. McGonigle uses character sketches and beautifully realistic voice-overs to convey among other points the cadences of Suffolk County speech and the racism that infects much of the area's white middle class. . . . McGonigle knows his territory and writes from the heart."
— David Sacks, The New York Times

"Going to Patchogue is as deep and ruthless a self-portrait as one might hope to find anywhere in contemporary fiction. McGonigle lays himself wide open in all his needless egotism, obsessiveness, bigotry and despair. . . . By the novel's end one can't be anything but moved by this native son's agony over the pointlessness of his restless travels."
— Jonathan Dee, Newsday

"In an age of predigested plotlines and predictable suspense, it is no mean feat that McGonigle can manage to surprise the reader time and again with unexpected bits of physical and psychological violence. He does have a unique point of view."
— The Los Angeles Times

"Instead of a monumentally long work like Ulysses, McGonigle has produced a marvelously resonant shorter work, one that operates on the principle of leaving out rather than putting in. . . . [He] emerges as one of the few white writers with the courage to portray white racists as they are."
— Eamonn Wall, American Book Review

"While many will find this literate and haunting novel difficult, others will treasure it as an exploration of those recesses of the mind where we can be most honestly ourselves. For McGonigle that territory is called Patchogue."
— Publishers Weekly

"This is not a book of for the weak of stomach but one for literary salts ready for the worst in the best of writing."
— Hannah Green