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






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Recommended Summer Reading,
USA Today



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BEST BET,
New York magazine


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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)