The Fix

by Arje Shaw

Only in America. Only in America can a young boy come to this country from a German displacement camp and find his life to be more unsettling than the one he left. Only in America can you lose everything while pursuing your dream. Only in America can Aryeh Pyatiegorskia grow to become Eddie Parker, a small-time bookie who uses his son, a High School basketball star, to fix games for the Mob. That's the outer story. The inner story is about fathers and sons, what pulls them together and rips them apart. "The language sings, the dialogue sizzles, and the author plays words, rhythm and cadence like a finely-tuned instrument." This is the story of a man coming to terms with himself, a compelling work of introspection and humor. Beneath the linguistic playfulness and witty banter, the author's true compassion for his characters shines through. The result is an edgy, hard-driven tale seeking the answer to Eddie Parker's perennial "Who am I and how did I get here?"

364 pages, Paperback

First published May 9, 2011

Reviews

[Steven Fleeker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is funny, insightful, and very, very good.