Chorao, Ian

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CHORAO, Ian

PERSONAL:

Male; married; children: Malcolm. Education: Purchase College, State University of New York, B.S. (psychology), 1990.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. Agent—Mitchell Waters, Curtis Brown Ltd., 10 Astor Place, New York, NY 10003. E-mail—ensharow@aol.com.

CAREER:

Novelist, author of screenplays, and art director. Jewish Association for Services for the Aged, social worker; worked for Goddard Riverside/Project Reachout. Art director for film and photo projects.

WRITINGS:

Snapped (screenplay), Illville Productions, 1998. Bruiser (novel), Atria (New York, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Ian Chorao is a former social worker and art director whose first novel, Bruiser, was published in 2003. The title character is a nine-year-old boy growing up in a troubled Manhattan household. His parents' marriage is failing and his brothers torment him mercilessly. Bruiser runs away in an attempt to escape his painful and confusing home life. Chorao's novel details Bruiser's journey of self-discovery, a trip he undertakes—accompanied by Darla, his ten-year-old neighbor—that leads him to West Virginia and North Carolina in search of answers to life's most baffling questions.

A New York native, Chorao draws on his own memories in detailing Bruiser's hometown accurately, and he composed his novel in the first person to fully capture the thoughts, feelings, dreams, and emotions of a nine-year-old boy. Reviewers applauded Chorao's precision in capturing the narrator's childhood angst. Booklist reviewer Donna Seaman called Chorao "an extraordinarily gifted first-time novelist," and commented that in Bruiser "Chorao's exquisite evocations of all the pain and wonder his young hero confronts are profoundly transporting." Jim Coan in Library Journal concluded that Chorao "convincingly depicts the inner landscape of children's fantasies and nightmares." A Publishers Weekly contributor described the novel as "starkly beautiful and unrelentingly grim," and compared it to "a roadside accident: harrowing to behold, yet impossible to ignore."