The Late Jay Gould May Be Alive and Well

About the Book

The Late Jay Gould May Be Alive And Well is a mainstream novel peopled with characters who are decidedly out of the mainstream. It’s an epic love story and a wide-ranging suspense novel that charms the reader into an enchanted (yet very real) world where at least one man can do magic . . . and wondrous things spring from that magic.

Jay Gould is a uniquely blessed, uniquely original young man. Not much is really known about him, except that he is imperturbable and unreasonably content, while also possessed of an eerie knack for doing exactly and precisely the right thing at every moment in his life.

Christine Nostrinco, for one, finds this infuriating—and irresistible. Very soon after meeting Jay Gould, the young woman finds herself propelled into an exciting life where money seems to materialize out of thin air, where frisbees and whiskey sour glasses occasionally levitate, and where a very alluring Museum of the Gods out in the desert of New Mexico becomes the nexus of a story that sprawls over two decades.

Along the way, the reader meets a host of characters who are each fascinating in their right:

•  Wesley Tills, a man who’s wasted his life on the law and soap operas until he finds his true destiny in becoming Da!/Ma! to Jay Gould’s children

• Helen Tormolino, a tall, skinny lady with a compulsion to pull up her T-shirt when meeting men

• A very much alive (and very obnoxious) J. Edgar Hoover, who deeply regrets faking his death back in 1972 because he is forevermore sentenced to eating take-out food

• Allie Morehouse, a Dresden-doll of a tiny woman who writes poetry and who is determined to keep her virginity until the absolute right man comes along

• Bert Tremble, who’s been looking all his life for the 7:10 MIRACLE EXPRESS, and passage into a new life

• Minnie Forest, a grim grouch of a woman who without so much as a by-your-leave will lop off a man’s head with a wicked two-handed sword

• Calvin Jefferson White, a black man who had all the angles figured out until he fell in love with Lateesha-Ta-Woonana

• Mel Brickle, whose worthless splat of desert land becomes home to The Museum of the Gods

• A shifting coterie of self-important, wrist-whispering federal agents who sternly adopt the circle of people orbiting Jay Gould

• Mark McKuen, an English teacher who is obsessed with T.S. Eliot -- and, more dangerously, with Christine Nostrinco

• Eamonn Casey, a lazy, good-for-nothing charmer of a rogue who’s never been known to lose his head over the ladies

• A pair of three-legged dogs who, oddly enough, play pivotal roles in Jay’s and Christine’s lives

• Jedediah Bowersox, the kind of man who would hold his palm over a blazing Zippo lighter if it would win him a bet, and who has the inside track on buying Saturn V moon rockets

• And, not least of all, the doomed Augustus Levy and his tragically-murdered lover, Xenia.

The Late Jay Gould May Be Alive And Well weaves its many interlocking stories into a rich and intricate fabric. It is a novel that entertains, delights and intrigues.

About the Author

Joseph J. Murphy is the Chairman of the Board of DCI Telecommunications, Inc. where he previously served as president and chief executive officer. Prior to that he was executive vice president and chief financial officer, and a member of the Board of Directors of Aquarion Company. Formerly, he was chief financial officer for Connecticut Energy Corp., a member of Price Waterhouse and an officer in the United States Marine Corps from 1961 to 1964. He was a member of the Board of Directors of Boys/Girls Club of Bridgeport and served on the economic advisory board for Fairfield University and Sudden Death Syndrome (SIDS) for Fairfield County. He was also a member of the FBI/Marine Corps Association. He holds a BS and MBA from Iona College in New York.