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Presidents’ Day
Presidents' DayAn elderly woman...an extremely partisan political environment...a lifetime of frustration...a gun in her purse...a suggestion...and an opportunity. Did she do it? Did she assassinate the president? Even she doesn't know. In this fast-paced and suspenseful novel, psychologist and author, Stephen A. Werbel, investigates the strange nature of memory and motivation.
308 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 10, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 29, 2021
Imagine waking up one day to find out that you are a murderer – not just any murderer, but an assassin of one of the world’s most well-known and powerful leaders: the President of the United States of America. Such was the fate of ninety-year-old Sylvia Parrish in Stephen A. Werbel’s debut novel, President’s Day. Waking up one day in a hospital bed, having no idea where she is or what has happened, Sylvia is led on a journey of doctor’s appointments, police interviews, and even hypnosis to discover the truth behind the accusation that she has killed America’s President. In the meantime, the world is divided between applauding and condemning this unlikely murderess, while Mrs. Parrish herself is torn between belief and doubt, joy and anger, love and hate.
President’s Day contains many great characters like fiery Sylvia, her aging husband Abe, a novice lawyer Robert, and wise Dr. Ariyoshi which fill the book with a variety of personalities and feelings. The plot, though, is my favorite part as it intrigues and tells this story from a unique perspective. It was interesting to delve into what the aftermath of a president’s assassination would be like in today’s world. Though the book is fiction, it clearly refers to real people and thus offers a strong opinion on what the world would look like without one of our former presidents.
However, I think this novel could have been much better had it been professionally edited. Unfortunately, there are quite a lot of technical errors throughout including grammatical errors, mechanical issues, confusing transitions, stilted dialogue, and a choppy style. The concept of the plot and characters is overall good, but the execution sadly falls short of its potential.
For instance, the majority of the book takes place in a Honolulu hospital, looping the characters into a continuous cycle of routine and keeping the plot from moving forward. Additionally, there were many portions of the book which made it very unrealistic even for fiction. A few examples are: extremely relaxed police procedures, all characters' mutual hatred for the president, no name given to the president, and the ability of the lawyer to find out impossible information. Finally, while the beginning and end of the book contain plenty of action, the middle of the book is basically an hour-by-hour description of Sylvia’s day with every bit of dialogue, thought, or movement repeated several times over, making this portion doubly difficult to get through.
For these reasons, I rate President's Day 1 out of 4 stars. I think the overall concept and characters are great, but this book certainly needs more editing before I would recommend it to others. If the technical issues were worked out, I believe that Werbel’s book would be incredibly enjoyable for any adults interested in historical fiction, conspiracy theories, and political intrigue.
President’s Day contains many great characters like fiery Sylvia, her aging husband Abe, a novice lawyer Robert, and wise Dr. Ariyoshi which fill the book with a variety of personalities and feelings. The plot, though, is my favorite part as it intrigues and tells this story from a unique perspective. It was interesting to delve into what the aftermath of a president’s assassination would be like in today’s world. Though the book is fiction, it clearly refers to real people and thus offers a strong opinion on what the world would look like without one of our former presidents.
However, I think this novel could have been much better had it been professionally edited. Unfortunately, there are quite a lot of technical errors throughout including grammatical errors, mechanical issues, confusing transitions, stilted dialogue, and a choppy style. The concept of the plot and characters is overall good, but the execution sadly falls short of its potential.
For instance, the majority of the book takes place in a Honolulu hospital, looping the characters into a continuous cycle of routine and keeping the plot from moving forward. Additionally, there were many portions of the book which made it very unrealistic even for fiction. A few examples are: extremely relaxed police procedures, all characters' mutual hatred for the president, no name given to the president, and the ability of the lawyer to find out impossible information. Finally, while the beginning and end of the book contain plenty of action, the middle of the book is basically an hour-by-hour description of Sylvia’s day with every bit of dialogue, thought, or movement repeated several times over, making this portion doubly difficult to get through.
For these reasons, I rate President's Day 1 out of 4 stars. I think the overall concept and characters are great, but this book certainly needs more editing before I would recommend it to others. If the technical issues were worked out, I believe that Werbel’s book would be incredibly enjoyable for any adults interested in historical fiction, conspiracy theories, and political intrigue.
August 6, 2022
President's Day is Stephen A. Werbel's first (and apparently will remain his only) novel. It revolves around Sylvia Parrish, a 90-year-old Jewish American woman born of immigrant parents, who is arrested for assassinating the American president, a controversial conservative (guess who he is, it's not hard) she vehemently despised. Unable to remember committing the act that she is accused of, she is confined to a hospital for observation, where doctors, a psychologist, FBI agents and she herself try to get to the bottom of what possessed her, a self-proclaimed coward, to shoot the president at point blank range on a public occasion in front of innumerable witnesses. While legally backed into a corner with no hope of release, socially she causes a sensation, becoming a folk hero for putting down a president who was widely abhorred and gaining tremendous support across the world.
For a first attempt, this book has some impressive qualities, perhaps as a result of the author's maturity. It is firmly embedded in a socio-political context, making it realistic and relatable. The prose is reasonably good, the characterisation consistent, the dialogue fairly well-written, the situation, other than the way the assassination occurs, or perhaps even in that regard, plausible. The premise is undeniably enough to make one's eyes pop out of their sockets at the (brilliant!) audacity. And there are apt references to classical literature, including Death of a Salesman and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. What's not to love, right?
Which brings us to the less impressive qualities of this book. There are several errors — grammatical, punctuation, formalistic — and the formatting is poor, with the text often randomly turning italicized or bold and changing back. The speech switches erratically between direct and reported, and the dialogue runs on like in a drama script or an interview without any reference to the characters' surroundings or their emotions and thoughts, so that the atmosphere completely disappears, robbing the story of much of its impact. But the most agonising aspect of this book, and the single reason I could not finish it, is the appalling amount of repetition of dialogue. So much of the dialogue is recycled and regurgitated by different characters that information that may have had some interest at some point in the story quickly becomes abhorrent to the eyes. Words cannot express my frustration at the amount of repetition I read simply because it never occurred to me that I would leave this book unfinished, it started out so well. But I'm glad I left it, because the only conceivable reason for so much filler content is that the actual plot must have been hollow and anticlimactic. Indeed there is no suspense in the story — up to the point that I read, what action occurs is as the characters had predicted it — no surprise, no twist, nothing unforeseen whatsoever.
This could have been a fast-paced, unputdownable page-turner. Instead, endless repetition made it go round and round in exhausting circles until my patience, which has long been and continues to be tested and tempered in the flame of my avid reading of lengthy classics and lengthier high fantasy series that take their time building up the narrative and offering any kind of disclosure, finally gave out after I'd read a little more than half of this disastrous book. The premise could not have been more heretical, tempting and attention-grabbing. A 90-year-old woman assassinating the US president? How could anyone not pick up this book? But like Icarus, it leaps from a high tower with wings outspread like an eagle that will eclipse the sun, only to plummet down onto the rocks and fade into insignificance.
It breaks my heart to give this book 1 out of 4 stars. It went in my estimation from deserving 3 stars, losing one only because of the many errors; to 2 stars, because it was repetitive and hence may fail to keep impatient readers engaged despite some worthy qualities; to a dismal 1 star because the repetition crossed all reasonable limits so that I could not even finish it, and hence dare not recommend to anyone else. To give some idea of the nature of the contents of this book, I can say that, had it been less torturous and more readable, I would have recommended it for Nancy Drew fans, Agatha Christie fans, Trump haters, people interested in psychology and conspiracies, and feminists/fans of awe-inspiring elderly female figures like Professor McGonagall and Granny Weatherwax. But as it stands, I must advise people to read it at their own risk, because there's only so many times you can read the same stuff before feeling sick to your stomach.
For a first attempt, this book has some impressive qualities, perhaps as a result of the author's maturity. It is firmly embedded in a socio-political context, making it realistic and relatable. The prose is reasonably good, the characterisation consistent, the dialogue fairly well-written, the situation, other than the way the assassination occurs, or perhaps even in that regard, plausible. The premise is undeniably enough to make one's eyes pop out of their sockets at the (brilliant!) audacity. And there are apt references to classical literature, including Death of a Salesman and Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. What's not to love, right?
Which brings us to the less impressive qualities of this book. There are several errors — grammatical, punctuation, formalistic — and the formatting is poor, with the text often randomly turning italicized or bold and changing back. The speech switches erratically between direct and reported, and the dialogue runs on like in a drama script or an interview without any reference to the characters' surroundings or their emotions and thoughts, so that the atmosphere completely disappears, robbing the story of much of its impact. But the most agonising aspect of this book, and the single reason I could not finish it, is the appalling amount of repetition of dialogue. So much of the dialogue is recycled and regurgitated by different characters that information that may have had some interest at some point in the story quickly becomes abhorrent to the eyes. Words cannot express my frustration at the amount of repetition I read simply because it never occurred to me that I would leave this book unfinished, it started out so well. But I'm glad I left it, because the only conceivable reason for so much filler content is that the actual plot must have been hollow and anticlimactic. Indeed there is no suspense in the story — up to the point that I read, what action occurs is as the characters had predicted it — no surprise, no twist, nothing unforeseen whatsoever.
This could have been a fast-paced, unputdownable page-turner. Instead, endless repetition made it go round and round in exhausting circles until my patience, which has long been and continues to be tested and tempered in the flame of my avid reading of lengthy classics and lengthier high fantasy series that take their time building up the narrative and offering any kind of disclosure, finally gave out after I'd read a little more than half of this disastrous book. The premise could not have been more heretical, tempting and attention-grabbing. A 90-year-old woman assassinating the US president? How could anyone not pick up this book? But like Icarus, it leaps from a high tower with wings outspread like an eagle that will eclipse the sun, only to plummet down onto the rocks and fade into insignificance.
It breaks my heart to give this book 1 out of 4 stars. It went in my estimation from deserving 3 stars, losing one only because of the many errors; to 2 stars, because it was repetitive and hence may fail to keep impatient readers engaged despite some worthy qualities; to a dismal 1 star because the repetition crossed all reasonable limits so that I could not even finish it, and hence dare not recommend to anyone else. To give some idea of the nature of the contents of this book, I can say that, had it been less torturous and more readable, I would have recommended it for Nancy Drew fans, Agatha Christie fans, Trump haters, people interested in psychology and conspiracies, and feminists/fans of awe-inspiring elderly female figures like Professor McGonagall and Granny Weatherwax. But as it stands, I must advise people to read it at their own risk, because there's only so many times you can read the same stuff before feeling sick to your stomach.
December 22, 2023
I am fortunate to know the next author personally. We met in the 70’s when we all lived in Hawaii and shared an interest in environmental and overpopulation problems. Steph and his wife Genie still live there and one of the perks of visiting Hawaii is that we get to see them and reacquaint ourselves.
I thought about my friend Steph’s book when I read Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead. Both deal with subjects on the edge of implausibility. In his book Presidents’ Day, Stephen Werbel gives us an ordinary 90 year-old grandmother who, in an unpremeditated attack, successfully assassinates the president of the United States and remembers nothing about it. Did she really do it?
Sylvia, unhappy, angry, and depressed, finds an outlet for her feelings in competitive bridge. Participation in a tournament puts her in a hotel at the time the president is there also. She carries a gun at her husband’s insistence because she is often out alone at night. For some reason she sits down in the area the president will pass through. And then?? Sylvia can’t remember.
Steph, who in an earlier life was a school psychologist, meticulously builds his case. Here is an opportunity to learn about some of the more unusual workings of the mind. Having been in the educational field, Steph is a good teacher who explains, repeats and summarizes. While some of this is helpful, too much slows the pace of the book and keeps the story from moving along.
Sylvia’s hatred of Trump and her action offer a bit of wish fulfillment for the author. I was worried that Steph’s book would be out of date after the election, but apparently, as the ex-president continues to draw attention to himself and generate strong feelings, it is more timely than ever. Despite the subject, this is a feel-good book, as the author adroitly works things out in the end. It is available through Amazon.
If you would like to read more of my reviews, please check out my blog, Old Ladies Read and More to see what interested women are reading. https://www.oldladiesread.com
I thought about my friend Steph’s book when I read Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead. Both deal with subjects on the edge of implausibility. In his book Presidents’ Day, Stephen Werbel gives us an ordinary 90 year-old grandmother who, in an unpremeditated attack, successfully assassinates the president of the United States and remembers nothing about it. Did she really do it?
Sylvia, unhappy, angry, and depressed, finds an outlet for her feelings in competitive bridge. Participation in a tournament puts her in a hotel at the time the president is there also. She carries a gun at her husband’s insistence because she is often out alone at night. For some reason she sits down in the area the president will pass through. And then?? Sylvia can’t remember.
Steph, who in an earlier life was a school psychologist, meticulously builds his case. Here is an opportunity to learn about some of the more unusual workings of the mind. Having been in the educational field, Steph is a good teacher who explains, repeats and summarizes. While some of this is helpful, too much slows the pace of the book and keeps the story from moving along.
Sylvia’s hatred of Trump and her action offer a bit of wish fulfillment for the author. I was worried that Steph’s book would be out of date after the election, but apparently, as the ex-president continues to draw attention to himself and generate strong feelings, it is more timely than ever. Despite the subject, this is a feel-good book, as the author adroitly works things out in the end. It is available through Amazon.
If you would like to read more of my reviews, please check out my blog, Old Ladies Read and More to see what interested women are reading. https://www.oldladiesread.com
September 4, 2020
Wonderful book. Can't say much because I don't want to spoil it for others.
Definitely a very good book to read in a world where Trump is president.
Incredible.
Definitely a very good book to read in a world where Trump is president.
Incredible.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews