38 Adults, 45 Children, A Life Preserver and A Fire Axe

About the Book

Meet  Max Tenor; a man so enraged at Manhattan, so sure that the city is the cause of all his failures, that he decides to walk out on it, taking the reader along with him on the craziest trip through New York you have ever seen. His life has been swallowed whole by the mediocrity of working nine to five. He spends his days in a cubicle; his only social interaction is being yelled at by his boss. A solitary man, his frustrations with his life, living in the overpopulated, chaotic world of New York City begins to catch up with him, fast. Max has become an insomniac, haunted when he finally drops off to sleep by a recurring dream of falling off the Empire State building as Nancy Sinatra sings, “These Boots Were Made For Walkin’” on his way down. He is losing his mind.

He has one friend: his neighbor, Brad Spezniak--an East Village musician who is never seen without pink hair and plaid suits. Brad, in trying to make Max understand what’s going on within him, explains that he has only one of two choices left at this point in his life. He can both stay in NYC and further lose his mind or leave while he still has his sanity and find a better life somewhere else. Max sees Brad’s point and decides to leave. He is so jaded by the city itself that he walks out on it, literally, just as it has done to him.

Through random interactions with people he meets on the street, Max soon begins to understand how the energy and flow of this crazy-every-which-way-place resembles his own life. He meets Sailor Jack, East Fifth’s equivalent to the Wildman of 96th Street, who protects the locals from harm and argues with his invisible lover. Julius, a young musician, tells Max the story of being attacked in Greenwich Village by a group of kids with knives and almost dying. Max realizes in the end that he not only loves NYC, he hates NYC and most importantly, he loves hating NYC.

About the Author

Born in Brooklyn, raised in Staten Island and working in New York City, my fascination with New York and writing has led me to my first novel, “38 Adults, 45 Children, A Life Preserver and A Fire Axe.” I have been writing poetry and prose for about eight years and have found the best topics to write about come from experience. Music, especially improvisational jazz has helped me discover the rhythm in description, people and life. It has also helped me develop a style of writing, putting all of them together. I have written for local and college newspapers as well as for a website and feel that the best is still yet to come.