The Hardship Bazaar

When professional ethicist Jack Waxman goes missing his elderly father Donald takes the case. Donald thinks hes a hardboiled private detective but hes just a retired writer of films and TV shows about hardboiled detectives. Jacks depressed daughter Samantha joins in the search mainly to make sure Grandpa Donald doesnt hurt himself. Together they scour Los Angeles for leads confronting past mistakes and making plenty of new ones. In the course of their quest Sam struggles to achieve something like adulthood and Donald struggles to reconcile fantasy and reality. But where is Jack Waxman? Also who really is Jack Waxman? A degraded Odysseus for a degraded world Jack finds himself adrift at risk of losing his reputation his family and even his life. If hes going to survive and do it with his soul intact he has to overcome his deepest fears. Jacks story entwined with Sam and Donalds is a gripping comic adventure but its also a meditation on how one ought to live in a world thats falling apart.