The Ringer — Bill Scheft

“A touching story about family, responsibility, and a thirty-five-year-old deciding it might be time to grow up.” -- The Boston Globe
 
·      Recommended Summer Reading, USA Today
·      BEST BET, New York magazine
·      New York Daily News Book Club
 
Morton Martin Spell -- a once-brilliant, now-infirm seventy-five-year-old writer -- is sliding into delirium. He thinks Mount Sinai Hospital is an exclusive golf course and his catheter is a gym bag. His only link to reality is his thirty-five-year-old nephew, who makes his living as a hired gun for thirteen softball teams and still goes by the name College Boy.
 
But College Boy's body has begun to betray him -- almost as much as his lack of ambition. (His only legitimate paycheck comes from a gig as a laugher on a morning radio show.) Not only that, the Dirt King, a small-time gangster who controls all the replacement soil in Central Park, is after College Boy. As their lives collide, College Boy takes refuge in the arms of Sheila -- his uncle's cleaning woman and a part-time call girl.
 
And then it gets weird.
 
“A winning debut. Scheft blends crackling banter, pithy prose, and empathy for his characters in a punchy Raymond Chandler-meets-Bruce Jay Friedman style . . . A sparkling discovery.” -- Entertainment Weekly (Editor's Choice)
 
“Funny, insightful, and profound . . . I'm outraged.” -- Larry David
 
“Funny, energetic, intelligent, touching, and funny. If you don't enjoy this book, there is something wrong with you.” -- David Letterman
 
“Scheft keeps the material coming at a machine-gun pace. The jokes are plentiful and very high in quality.” -- The New York Times Book Review (featured)