At age thirty-five, Morris Bliss is clamped in the jaws of New York City inertia. Enter Stefani, an eighteen-year-old girl in a Catholic school uniform, and Morris's once static life quickly unravels when Stefani's father calls on Morris to work for him. Morris's life becomes further entangled when his best friend, N.J., is recruited by an international cartel that controls global economics and local sex markets, and Morris is called in to save N.J.'s bacon. But most importantly, Morris's father, a taciturn widower, finally reveals the truth surrounding the strange death of Morris's mother. With the agony of his inertia finally broken, Morris Bliss fights to keep his life from careening out of control. He must learn to adapt if he is to survive.
About the Author :
Douglas Light was born in Indiana. His story collection Girls in Trouble won the 2010 AWP Grace Paley Prize for short fiction. He is the author of the novel East Fifth Bliss, which received the Benjamin Franklin Award for Fiction. Light's second novel Where Night Stops received a 2010 NoMAA Grant. His fiction has won an O. Henry Prize and has appeared in the 2003 Best American Nonrequired Reading anthology, and several magazines.
READER BIO
John Pruden started voice work as a Master of Ceremonies while stationed in the military. He has also done production and commercials for radio stations, done voiceovers for commercials, PSAs, Indie films, and documentaries, character acting and voices for video games and radio dramas, as well as narrating corporate and online training videos, and audiobooks.
Review :
"Set on New York's Lower East Side, this first novel by Light (founding editor, Epiphany) introduces Morris Bliss, 35 years old and living with his widowed father. Morris has big dreams of traveling all over the world. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a job or the means to take his aspirations beyond a collection of travel brochures and pushpins in a map on his bedroom wall. This fun read boasts a likable protagonist, other quirky and interesting characters, and vivid and humorous descriptions of New York while also providing some significant social commentary. The scene in which Morris and a former high school classmate (and father of the 18-year-old girl with whom Morris is sleeping) storm a vacant building in the middle of the night to roust out a group of homeless squatters is both funny and disturbing. Recommended for large public libraries with an interest in new and unknown authors." - Library Journal
