Anything Is Good

Fred Waitzkin

$32.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Open Road Media
31 January 2025

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Two Bronx boys take radically different paths in this novel about the limits of genius and the loss of home, by a ""terrifically gifted"" author (Anita Shreve, New York Timesbestselling author).

Ralph Silverman was a foreign film buff, a victim of bullies, and a boy genius. He held long conversations with his pet parakeet and spent countless hours on a computer, creating mesmerizing music and solving problems in philosophy. He was a friend of great scholars and the son of a wealthy outer-borough businessman with shady associates and a secret second family. And, as he begins to take over the story from the narrator, Ralph finds himself in South Florida, physically abused and expelled into a frightening world of the unhoused-with a broken pair of glasses, no money, and no shoes.

From the celebrated author of Searching for Bobby Fischer, Anything Is Good is a hypnotically compelling tale of a man haunted by the fate of his childhood buddy, and of that friend's pleasures and misfortunes as he navigates an unhoused life-a life more complex and dramatic than a bypasser might ever imagine.

""Anything Is Good... offers a deeply affecting dive into the lives of the unhoused. Its shifting perspective and changing narrative voice builds to a clarion call for greater empathy and understanding."" -Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prizewinning author of March

""Anything Is Good is the best portrait of homelessness I've read since George Orwell's Down and Out in London and Paris.... Superbly written."" -Gabriel Byrne

Praise for Fred Waitzkin's previous books

""Very few writers can deliver a story with this much heart... A great novel."" -Sebastian Junger

""I've seldom been so captivated by a book."" -Tom Stoppard

""A gem of a book."" -The New York Times

By: Fred Waitzkin
Imprint: Open Road Media
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 203mm, Width: 133mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9781504094030
ISBN 10: 1504094034
Pages: 198
Publication Date: 31 January 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Fred Waitzkin was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1943. When he was a teenager he wavered between wanting to spend his life as a fisherman, Afro Cuban drummer, or novelist. He went to Kenyon College and did graduate study at New York University. His work has appeared in Esquire, New York magazine, the New York Times Sunday Magazine, the New York Times Book Review, Outside, Sports Illustrated, Forbes, the Huffington Post, and the Daily Beast, among other publications. His memoir,Searching for Bobby Fischer, was made into a major motion picture released in 1993. His other books are Mortal Games, The Last Marlin, and The Dream Merchant. Recently, he has completed an original screenplay, The Rave. Waitzkin lives in Manhattan with his wife, Bonnie, and has two children, Josh and Katya, and two grandsons, Jack and Charlie. He spends as much time as possible on the bridge of his old boat, The Ebb Tide, trolling baits off distant islands with his family.