The Ringer

“A touching story about family, responsibility, and a thirty-five-year-old deciding it might be time to grow up.” —The Boston Globe

· Recommended Summer Reading, USA Today
· BEST BET, New York magazine
· New York Daily News Book Club

Morton Martin Spell—a once-brilliant, now-infirm seventy-five-year-old writer—is sliding into delirium. He thinks Mount Sinai Hospital is an exclusive golf course and his catheter is a gym bag. His only link to reality is his thirty-five-year-old nephew, who makes his living as a hired gun for thirteen softball teams and still goes by the name College Boy.

But College Boy’s body has begun to betray him—almost as much as his lack of ambition. (His only legitimate paycheck comes from a gig as a laugher on a morning radio show.) Not only that, the Dirt King, a small-time gangster who controls all the replacement soil in Central Park, is after College Boy. As their lives collide, College Boy takes refuge in the arms of Sheila—his uncle’s cleaning woman and a part-time call girl.

And then it gets weird.

“A winning debut. Scheft blends crackling banter, pithy prose, and empathy for his characters in a punchy Raymond Chandler-meets-Bruce Jay Friedman style . . . A sparkling discovery.” —Entertainment Weekly (Editor’s Choice)

“Funny, insightful, and profound . . . I’m outraged.” —Larry David

“Funny, energetic, intelligent, touching, and funny. If you don’t enjoy this book, there is something wrong with you.” —David Letterman

“Scheft keeps the material coming at a machine-gun pace. The jokes are plentiful and very high in quality.” —The New York Times Book Review (featured)