Swell: A Novel

Synopsis

Thirty Years After From Rockaway (a Great First Novel --harper's Bazaar), Jill Eisenstadt Returns With A Darkly Funny New Work Of Fiction That Exposes A City And A Family At Their Most Vulnerable. When Sue Glassman's Family Needs A New Home, Sue Relents, After Years Of Resisting, And Agrees To Convert To Judaism. In Return, Sue's Father-in-law, Sy, Buys The Family--sue, Dan, And Their Two Daughters--a Capacious But Ramshackle Beachfront House In Rockaway, Queens, A World Away From The Glassmans' Cramped Tribeca Apartment. The Catch? Sy Is Moving In, Too. And The House Is Haunted. On The Weekend Of Sue's Conversion Party, Ninety-year-old Rose, Who (literally) Got Away With Murder On The Premises Years Earlier, Shows Up Uninvited. Towing A Suitcase-sized Pocketbook, Having Escaped An Assisted Living Facility In Forest Hills, Rose Seems Intent On Moving Back In. Enter Neighbor Tim--formerly Timmy (see From Rockaway), A Former Lifeguard, Former Firefighter, And Reformed Alcoholic--who Feels, For Reasons Even He Can't Explain, Inordinately Protective Of The Glassmans. The Collective Nervous Breakdown Occasioned By Rose's Return Swells To Operatic Heights In A Novel That Charms And Surprises On Every Page As It Unflinchingly Addresses The Perils Of Living In A World Rife With Uncertainty.