Nathaniel Cerf exposes child abuse in the bureaucracy of children’t mental health in his unsettling novel “Little Victories.”

When Nathaniel Cerf’s query letter first found us, we were immediately intrigued by his comparison of his book about America’s children’s mental health system to the century-old “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair.

It got us to wondering about whatever happened to good, old-fashioned muckraking journalism–hard scrabble journalists uncovering travesties for the public and getting people to take action to hold power and authority accountable to their crimes.

We were compelled to request a copy of the manuscript.

When we began to pass his “Little Victories” around the office, we were astonished by the many layers of child abuse prevalent in America–not just in bad homes but in the bureaucracy established to help these voiceless kids.

It all came out in a tight narrative following a rookie mental health worker in an elementary school and the kids with whom she works. The characters and setting are fictional, as it would be illegal to discuss this much intimate details about minors and these programs in the press. Yet, it is very fact based and real.

Following a year in the life of a mental health worker and some of the children she cares for, “Little Victories” is a cutting edge piece of classic journalism in novel form.

Not wanting to believe the truth of it, we passed it around to teachers, therapists and city government officials that we know. Although they said some of the legal parts might be different from city and state to city and state, they uniformly agreed that he NAILED some of THE BIGGEST PROBLEMS THEY DEAL WITH EVERY DAY!

Nathaniel expressed some pretty extreme frustration with the publishing industry. Many literary agents and other publishers told him that the book was fantastic, but they didn’t know how to market it.

We said we agree that this is a story that absolutely must be told–petty marketing nabobs be damned.

So, without further ado, let us introduce you to our latest novelist and blogger Nathaniel Cerf.