Trailer Park Tuesday: Apology by Jon Pineda

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a perfect book trailer.  The video for Jon Pineda's debut novel Apology does everything right.  It's a perfect alignment of marketing elements: expertly filmed, long enough without being too long, loaded with blurbs (but not too many), and spiked with teasing hints of plot and character which reveal just enough to set the hook in our mouths. Confession: I received an advance copy of Apology months ago and though it looked promising, it soon started to drown in the flood of new titles coming through my front door on a daily basis.  In fact, I'd forgotten all about it until I saw this trailer.  Now, I'm plucking it out of the deluge and moving it closer to the top of my To-Be-Read pile.  The video begins with a young man taking an early-morning run along the docks in a seaside town.  As he jogs, a voice-over narration dictates a letter to a parole board in which he advocates on behalf of his imprisoned uncle.  The linchpin line of the video comes at the end: "What if this all started as a mistake that bloomed into where we are now?"  You don't need to know anything more about Apology other than what the trailer delivers, but if you were to know the book's plot, your interest would most likely go from "curious" to "gotta-get-that-book-now."  Here's what publisher Milkweed Editions tells us about Apology's story: "When nine-year-old Tom Serafino’s twin sister Teagan suffers a debilitating brain injury, a police investigation implicates his playmate Mario’s uncle—an immigrant, transient worker known as Shoe.  Innocent of the crime but burdened by his own childhood tragedy, Shoe takes the blame for what is in fact an accident caused by his young nephew, ensuring Mario’s chance at a future publicly unscarred." Apology hits bookstores today.  Run, don't walk, to get it.