FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Fredric Price
Publisher
FPrice@FigTreeBooks.net or 914-234-2268
THE SEA BEACH LINE: A NOVEL
by Ben Nadler
“[A] mesmerizing narrative that will speak to any readers who have tried to make sense of their parents’ lives or the secrets that people keep.”~Library Journal (starred review)
BEDFORD, NY (October 13, 2015) — The Sea Beach Line (Fig Tree Books; October 13, 2015; original trade paperback, $15.95; e-book, $10.99) by Ben Nadler melds mid-20th-century pulp fiction and traditional Jewish folklore as it updates the classic story of a young man trying to find his place in the world.
After being expelled from Oberlin for hallucinogenic drug use, Izzy Edel seeks out his estranged father—a Polish Jew turned Israeli soldier turned New York street vendor named Alojzy who is reported to be missing, possibly dead. To learn about Alojzy’s life and discover the truth behind his disappearance, Izzy takes over his father’s outdoor bookselling business and meets the hustlers, gangsters, and members of a religious sect who peopled his father’s world. He also falls in love with a mysterious young woman who is living on the streets after running away from her Hasidic home.
As Izzy soon discovers, appearances can deceive; no one, not even his own father, is quite whom he seems to be. Vowing to prove himself equal to Alojzy’s legacy of fearlessness, Izzy plunges forward on a criminal enterprise that will bring him answers—at great personal cost.
From Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay to the streets surrounding New York University and the Upper East Side, The Sea Beach Line explores layers of New York life and territory. Fans of Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn, Nathan Englander’s For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, and Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union will relish Ben Nadler’s combined mystery, love story, and homage to text and custom.
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THE SEA BEACH LINE: A Novel by Ben Nadler
Fig Tree Books; October 13, 2015; original trade paperback, $15.95, ISBN 978-1-941493-08-3; e-book, $10.99, ISBN 978-1-941493-09-0
About the author: Ben Nadler is the author of the novel Harvitz, As to War (Iron Diesel Press) and several chapbooks, including Punk in NYC’s Lower East Side, 1981-1991 (Microcosm Publishing) and The Men Who Work Under the Ground (Keep This Bag Away From Children Press). A poetry and comic collaboration chapbook is forthcoming with the visual artist Alyssa Berg. Nadler earned a BA from Eugene Lang College of The New School and an MFA from The City College of New York/CUNY. He has taught at City College, Eugene Lang College, and The College of New Rochelle – School of New Resources in the South Bronx. A former Manhattan street vendor, he has also worked in bookstores across New York, Chicago, and the San Francisco Bay Area. He lives in Brooklyn.
About Fig Tree Books: Fig Tree Books sources, publishes, and promotes literary, young-adult, and graphic novels (in print and e-book formats), as well as memoirs that chronicle and enlighten the unique American Jewish Experience (AJE). The Company accomplishes this in three ways: (1) by selecting new voices that have not had the opportunity to publish previously in these genres; (2) by working with previously published authors; and (3) by re-publishing important works that have gone out of print.