Twelve Publishers

Dear Reader,
We’ve been looking forward to August 2010 for a lone time; this month marks the publication of Pomerantz’s magnificent debut, Rich Boy, a beautifully written, richly observed, romantic, absorbing, sweeping drama that revivifies the Jewish-American novel.

Publishers rarely have the opportunity to introduce works of this scope and ambition. An award-winning writer of short stories, Sharon Pomerantz has been working on Rich Boy for ten years. She has made good use of that time. Each sentence rings true with just the right detail and feeling, drawn from her wise portrayal of the changes in her characters through four decades of American life.

The protagonist, Robert Vishniak, is a young man on the rise. Smart enough to use his good looks to his advantage, he seeks to transcend his lower-middle class Philadelphia origins. Over the next four decades, we watch his progress as he attends the best schools, makes connections, and enters New York’s most elite social circles, struggling to fit in, succeed and find love. We’ve already received rapturous responses from several discerning novelists, whose comments invoke everyone from Jay Gatsby to Bernie Madoff. As I was reading, I heard echoes of Grace Paley, Philip Roth, and Herman Wouk (if had he written Marjorie Morningstar from Noel Airman’s point of view). As you fall under the spell of Rich Boy, you will have that wonderful and rare feeling of learning secrets about intriguing and complicated people, and being surprised by their thoughts, the compromises they make, and the things they do to get what they want. There’s a bit of each of us in Rich Boy, and through this remarkable feat of fiction, Sharon Pomerantz allows us to confront some surprising truths.

Rich Boy is the only novel we will publish in 2010. Please take the time to read it and spread the word. Deep satisfaction guaranteed.