ABOUT ME
I grew up in and around New York City, traveled extensively, then returned for good in the mid-’80s. I have a B.S. from Northwestern and an M.S. from Columbia Journalism School, and have worked as an editor, political campaign staffer, actor, voiceover artist, stand-up comic and other jobs too numerous to mention… but my first love has always been putting words on paper.
I have been a professional writer since high school, producing novels, short stories, plays, film and TV scripts, essays, reviews, journalism – I like to joke that I’ve done just about everything except haiku.
NOVELS
My first novel, Frank, is a bitingly humorous look at American society through the eyes of an intelligent but very naïve visitor. The protagonist, Frank Percy, is a cultured European gentleman – impeccably mannered, multilingual, a connoisseur of fine wine and classic cinema – who is also more than seven and a half feet tall. He has come to America on a twofold mission: to refute the “myths and canards” that a certain 19th-century author has perpetuated about his family, and to share the details of “an alternate method of producing offspring.” Unfortunately, having lived his entire life in an isolated castle in Switzerland, Frank’s knowledge of the world is drawn entirely from the Internet and TV. The ultimate stranger in a strange land, his Candide-like innocence results in a cascading series of misunderstandings (and worse) with among others, the police, the media, a torture-porn film producer, the Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Senate. Frank is a comic novel with serious undertones, touching on themes such as technological change, nonconformity… and ultimately, the question of what, exactly, it means to be human. Click here to read the first five chapters.
“This is Rick Waisell…”, a work in progress, is a story of America in the last three decades of the 20th century, though its themes – ambition, hubris, hatred, revenge – are timeless. Three idealistic teenagers meet when they join the anti-Vietnam War movement at their suburban high school, but their connection is damaged by a sudden tragedy. In the years that follow, they go in different directions: Carl Strasler embarks on a journalism career, Sara Mendoza becomes an actress, and Rick Waisell has a meteoric rise in politics – but falls just as quickly. In this excerpt, set in 1983, Rick tries to decide what to do next.