Watermark Books and Cafe

Paul Rosenblatt's magical second novel is both a unique tour de force of complex artistic themes and a forthrightly ribald fantasy worthy of Boccaccio. Against the richly textured background of modern Florence, Rosenblatt places his Brooklyn-born hero, F. Scott Hoch (who shares a birthday with Fitzgerald), a man in the "middle of his journey", on the run from his humdrum life as chief of Maestro Maintenance Co., a self-confessed "man with a golf cap and a balloon, hopeless of finding hope in life, of ever watching television again".

This bright and enchanting novel has the qualities of a summer night's dream, an amazing web of literary allusion and earthly insight. Rosenblatt has found his voice - inspired, complex and literary, with always a touch of the visceral.