An eccentric outsider is baffled by contemporary Manhattan in this engrossing second novel by Adam Pelzman.
--Kirkus Reviews Bobby Walser's tragic childhood has left him a man frozen in time and mired in a world of his own making--one that has little in common with reality.
Genteel and old-fashioned, his manners and habits are more suited to an aristocrat from a Chekhov play than to a young man on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
Haunted by his failure to live up to the legacy of his great father, Walser's sense of ineffectuality is compounded when he suffers a series of deflating professional setbacks.
He's baffled by the people around him, and his only solace is the hope of a romance--conducted via handwritten letters--with a mysterious woman who may not even exist.
As his despair with twenty-first century life reaches a breaking point, Walser bristles at a newly constructed sculpture that represents everything he loathes about these times.
Realizing that he has more to care about--and fight for--outside himself, he marches toward a final showdown with this towering symbol of oppressive technology.
This is another entrancing, deeply memorable offering from Pelzman .
Devilishly sharp social commentary.
--Kirkus Reviews.
Jackson Heights Press The papaya king, paperback/adam pelzman
