After losing his grandfather, the last male role model in his life, 12 year-old Mike finds himself the the lone male in a house full of women - an absent mother, a financially-strapped grandmother, and a doting great-grandmother. Without his hero around to guide him, Mike struggles to find his place in this first generation Italian-American family. That is, until he runs into his grandfather's former business partner and Connecticut's most prominent crime lord, Frank. Mike is immediately drawn to "Uncle Frank" and is thrilled when his grandmother arranges for them to spend more time together despite his mother's arguments. Frank takes Mike under his wing, teaching him how to win a fight and how to take care of his family while sharing stories he never knew about his grandfather. As tensions rise between the two crime families in Connecticut, Mike begins to question if Frank was telling him the truth about his relationship with his grandfather. When Mike learns that Frank and his grandmother share a secret that spans decades and even his mother doesn't know, Mike must decide whether or not to pursue a truth that threatens to not only tarnish his image of his grandfather, but also unravel everything about his family as he knows it.
Emilio Iasiello is an extensively published author across several disciplines. He is the author of the thriller Attrition, the literary novel The Girl Behind the Glass, and the middle-grade novel The Web Paige Chronicles. Passionate about all forms of writing, he has also authored a collection of short stories Why People Do What They Do and a full-length book of poetry Smoke in the Afterlife. He has written the screenplays for several independent feature films, and his stage plays have been produced in the United States and United Kingdom. A cybersecurity expert by day, he has published research papers, security blogs, and presented before international audiences.
"As a novelist, Jon Papernick is a master at salvaging dignity from human disappointment. He is a fixer in fiction, a storyteller of hidden silver linings, the kind of lively, engaging writer who will make you laugh and squirm and root for a happier ending for his characters--all misfits, outcasts, survivors--many of whom are too cynical or broken to believe in the writer who conjured them. GALLERY OF THE DISAPPEARED MEN is a master class in Papernick's special talents."--Thane Rosenbaum, author of How Sweet it is!, The Golems of Gotham and Second Hand Smoke "Gallery of the Disappeared Men is a knockout collection of stories that promises to both shock and move you. With bright, evocative prose, Papernick dares to shine a light on the disturbing edges of the human psyche, while never losing sight of the goodness often found at the center. In these stories, better selves battle crueler instincts, painful pasts clash with hopeful futures, magical realism dances with harsh verisimilitude, and cruelty and violence occur--as they do in the real world--beside sparks of kindness and conscience. Reader, prepare to sometimes squirm with discomfort, sometimes root with joy, and to never ever be bored."--Jessamyn Hope, author of Safekeeping "I could rave on for hours about how deeply moved I was by this collection. I am awed by how well Papernick writes the perspectives of women, how he writes loss and how he incorporates Jewish history and the rich pain of our people that remains a shadow of unshakeable darkness that lives inside of us. Gallery of the Disappeared Men is unique and powerful. And it offers hope, too, by showing how transformative love can be in all its many broken forms of rescue. Each story in this collection is a beautifully crafted ballad, and each character a cantor, who illuminates the deepest forms of loss and offers a survivors' breed of hope, making this a perfect collection for our times."--Melissa Falcon Field, author of What Burns Away "Jon Papernick is a magician, conjuring a rich emotional landscape from his deeply observed characters and their very human lives and needs."--Ben Tanzer, author of Upstate, Orphans, and Lost in Space "Jon Papernick's Gallery of the Disappeared Men is vicious and truthful, fantastical yet down-to-earth. Each story offers a different angle into the troubled heart of humanity with a keen eye for every palpitation and irregular beat. An equal mix of survivors, victims, and those who fall between such distinctions appear throughout these stories. All of them will linger and lurk in your mind for a long while. Disappear with these men (and women) and find yourself somewhere else indeed."--Charles Pieper, writer and director of Malacostraca, writer of Destroy all Neighbors and producer of Everybody Goes to the Hospital "Papernick's stories are at turns gritty, heart-wrenching, and quick-witted, but always unforgettable. I'm so excited to know this collection will finally be out in the world. Everyone should read it."--Sara Novic, New York Times bestselling author of True Biz "Prepare yourself. Gallery of the Disappeared Men is not a book you can dip into. These stories are transgressive and unafraid. This is a book that will trap you and sentence by sentence bind you more tightly to the fates of characters faced with impossible choices, characters driven by desires they do not understand, characters who search for what seems real. Here are dreams, some of them nightmares, from which you will not easily wake, and which will stay with you long after you do."--Richard Hoffman, author of Interference & Other Stories "The stories in Jonathan Papernick's ambitious collection, Gallery of the Disappeared Men, all ask a profound question: how do we begin to face our own trauma? Part mythical, part magical, always historical, and forever haunting, this book examines the violence and brutality of antisemitism, racism and misogyny through a difficult lens; prepare to be shaken by it. I won't forget it."--Carolyn Ferrell, author of Dear Miss Metropolitan; anthologized in Best American Short Stories 2018 and The Best American Short Stories of the Century "With his new collection, Gallery of the Disappeared Men, Jonathan Papernick once again proves himself a consummate storyteller. From a stark displaced persons camp to the staid Boston suburbs, to the purportedly cushy camp hills of Orange County, Papernick boldly immerses us in unsettling and disturbing landscapes. Violence is everywhere and often unrelenting, perpetrated by an extensive cast of bullies. But there is magic in the horror, too. Children grow gills. A dead mother spams her son. A severed hand morphs into a man. These are brutal stories of a troubled world excavated with surgical precision in a tireless search of the reckless and ruined, ever-beating, human heart."--Sara Lippmann, author of Doll Palace, Jerks and Lech
