The Papaya King

An eccentric outsider is baffled by contemporary Manhattan in this engrossing second novel ... another entrancing deeply memorable offering from Pelzman. -Kirkus ReviewsHow could anyone who has ever spent time in Manhattan resist taking a peek at a book with this title? Happily The Papaya King bears more than a passing resemblance to one of my favorite novels of all time John Kennedy Tooles A Confederacy of Dunces ... I turned these pages fast ... -Bethanne Patrick Literary HubBobby Walsers tragic childhood has left him a man frozen in time and mired in a world of his own making-one that has little in common with reality. Genteel and old-fashioned his manners and habits are more suited to an aristocrat from a Chekhov play than to a young man on Manhattans Upper West Side.Haunted by his failure to live up to the legacy of his great father Walsers sense of ineffectuality is compounded when he suffers a series of deflating professional setbacks. Hes baffled by the people around him and his only solace is the hope of a romance-conducted via handwritten letters-with a mysterious woman who may not even exist.As his despair with twenty-first century life reaches a breaking point Walser bristles at a newly constructed sculpture that represents everything he loathes about these times. Realizing that he has more to care about-and fight for-outside himself he marches toward a final showdown with this towering symbol of oppressive technology.