Books

Dead People

Synopsis

Everything changed when the Stringfellows arrived on Earth and restarted the world. The bad news is that the aliens randomly chose which people to bring back to life. No rhyme or reason. From across time. The good and the bad. To take care of the more evil of these unfortunate returns, the Stringfellows have tasked certain humans with the new occupation of assassin. Following a unique and mysterious point system, the ultimate reward for their bloody work is the chance to bring back a person of their choosing. Crass and blunt, hitman Mild McMahon only wants to bring back one person: his mother. But to do this he’ll have to kill some of the worst people in history. Given assignments by his talking dog and forced to team up with an unlikely assassin with a near addiction to breath mints, Mild must hunt down a murderers’ row of notorious killers and hope he still has time for coffee.

Reckoner

Synopsis

A slice-of-life, coming-of-age story about an orphaned outcast named Miles Rockefeller who struggles to find redemption in the world of addiction.
Miles Rockefeller is a troubled young man, raised in multiple foster homes, with no patience for the folly of other people, surviving from one moment to the next by numbing himself to oblivion. But when he meets another lost teenager named Sawyer, his life is permanently altered by a senseless crime that shatters not just their own lives and that of their unknowing victim, but everyone else in their path.

Victim of Circumstance

Synopsis

A collection of autobiographical vignettes, Victim of Circumstance is a meditation on love and loss, examining our perceptions of ourselves and how they shape the most important decisions of our lives. With humor and heart, Rappaport bounds across years and continents, searching for sense in life’s heartbreaks, philosophical quandaries, chance encounters, and the occasional life-or-death misadventure.

One Day the Weatherman

Synopsis

One Day the Weatherman is the story of Lucas Neary, a young musician coming of age in the 1970's and 80's. From the onset, Lucas is forced to deal with the unexpected death of his older brother, his odd and emotionally unavailable mother, and his suddenly absent father, while making the painful and insightful journey to becoming a man. 

Moving and often hilarious, the story follows Lucas through high school and college as he yearns to reunite with the father who abandoned him and tries to come to terms with his absence.Although told mostly through the eyes of Lucas, the story also makes unexpected pit stops into the minds and lives of his parents, giving the reader a gestalt of the panoramic life Lucas lives and the reasons why his life takes the turns it does. One Day the Weatherman examines the notion of coincidence and fate and the role they may or may not play in our everyday decisions and lives.

Heartwarming, sometimes comedic, and yet painfully real, One Day the Weatherman explores the "quest" and our journeys through life--how what you want may not be what you were looking for in the first place... or maybe you had it all along and never realized it. The Rolling Stones said it best with their legendary lyrics: "...You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.