Joshua Max Feldman

The author of the critically acclaimed The Book of Jonah explores questions of love and choice, disappointment and hope in the lives of two strangers who meet by chance in this mesmerizing tale that unfolds over one Thanksgiving Day. Adam is a former musician and recovering alcoholic who is home for Thanksgiving for the first time in many years. Surrounded by his parents and siblings, nieces and nephews—all who have seen him at his worst—he can’t shake the feeling that no matter how hard he tries, he’ll always be the one who can’t get it right. Marissa is a flight attendant whose marriage is strained by simmering tensions over race, class, and ambition. Heading to her in-laws for their picture-perfect holiday family dinner, her anxiety is intensified by the knowledge she is pregnant from an impulsive one-night-stand. In an airport restaurant on Thanksgiving morning, Adam and Marissa meet. Over the course of this day fraught with emotion and expectation, these two strangers will form an unlikely bond as they reckon with their family ties, their pasts, and the choices that will determine their way forward. Joshua Max Feldman focuses his knowing eye on one of the last bastions of classical American idealism, the Thanksgiving family gathering, as he explores our struggles to know—and to be—our best selves. Hilarious and heartrending, Start Without Me is a thoughtful and entertaining page-turner that will leave its indelible mark on your heart.

A Novel

Start Without Me

The Book of Jonah

A major literary debut, an epic tale of love, failure, and unexpected faith set in New York, Amsterdam, and Las Vegas The modern-day Jonah at the center of Joshua Max Feldman's brilliantly conceived retelling of the Book of Jonah is a young Manhattan lawyer named Jonah Jacobstein. He's a lucky man: healthy and handsome, with two beautiful women ready to spend the rest of their lives with him and an enormously successful career that gets more promising by the minute. He's celebrating a deal that will surely make him partner when a bizarre, unexpected biblical vision at a party changes everything. Hard as he tries to forget what he saw, this disturbing sign is only the first of many Jonah will witness, and before long his life is unrecognizable. Though this perhaps divine intervention will be responsible for more than one irreversible loss in Jonah's life, it will also cross his path with that of Judith Bulbrook, an intense, breathtakingly intelligent woman who's no stranger to loss herself. As this funny and bold novel moves to Amsterdam and then Las Vegas, Feldman examines the way we live now while asking an age-old question: How do you know if you're chosen?

Jonah Jacobstein es un joven abogado de Manhattan que tiene todo cuanto podría desear: dinero, una carrera prometedora y dos mujeres dispuestas a pasar su vida con él. Pero justo cuando está a punto de convertirse en socio del despacho en el que trabaja, tiene una extraña visión en medio de una fiesta que lo cambiará todo. Aunque Jonah hace todo lo posible por olvidarla, será solo la primera de unas cuantas alucinaciones que pondrán su vida patas arriba. Cuando está intentando recuperar la cordura, conoce casualmente a Judith Bulbrook, una mujer inteligente y profunda con una vida marcada por la tragedia, y sus destinos quedarán extrañamente ligados. Ambientada en el mundo de los jóvenes ejecutivos que forman la élite laboral neoyorquina, esta novela, una versión moderna y gamberra del Libro de Jonah, examina al hombre contemporáneo y lo enfrenta a una cuestión antiquísima, ¿es posible que exista Alguien cuya llamada condicione nuestra existencia? Una divertida novela sobre el amor y el fracaso que se atreve a plantear cuestiones que la ajetreada vida moderna tiende a olvidar. «El libro de Jonah (...) revela a un autor liberado de ataduras estilísticas que propone una visión original, audaz y deshinibida de la actualidad, y demuestra conocer bien los entresijos de la naturaleza humana. Es un libro sorprendente que se lee con placer y que anuncia una esplendorosa carrera literaria de la que habrá que estar muy pendientes»A. J. U. (La opinión de Murcia) «Feldman posee un talento narrativo indiscutible, su prosa es rica y profunda y ha logrado una brillante recreación de las angustias y los anhelos de nuestro mundo. Habrá que estar pendiente de sus aventuras cuando salga de Nínive.»Sagrario Fdez.-Prieto (La Razón) «El argumento, infundido con una energía duradera, coge cada vez más ímpetu y culmina con un enigmático, inesperado final... Merece nuestro aplauso.»Carmela Ciuraru (The New York Times)

Joshua Max Feldman

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