Presner the Remarkable
For 13 years Presner has worked the graveyard shift at Tyson's 24-Hour News and Smoke. He is also an attorney (non-practicing), a playwright (unproduced), a weightlifter (non-Olympian), and a reader of detective novels (not literature). Presner is grieving for his sister, Sara, an actress, who died twelve years ago. Presner has written a play, Tales of Presner the Remarkable, which is really about his late, disgraced pal from law school, Norm Fitzhugh, a charismatic scammer who helped him when Sara was dying.
Mostly, Presner has viewed life as a Chekhovian comedy, wherein characters take themselves more tragically than circumstances warrant. He draws upon art, drama, philosophy, and Jewish folklore to ease his angst. And then one day he walks into a Continuing Ed acting class and meets Lisa Caner, the greatest local actress since Sara.
Presner the Remarkable is about the stories we tell ourselves after life spins out of control. It is a tragicomedy about one man's quarrel with fate. It is a story about starting over, this time for good.
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"Presner is the misfit in his middle-aged group of law school friends. While the others have carved out relationships and legal careers, Presner is an aspiring playwright working at a newsstand while nurturing a platonic (maybe more?) friendship with a struggling actress. . . . Eron, through Presner, elevates the novel with candor, humor, and self-awareness. From page one, the author's writing is infused with a chummy nostalgia, and the characters and social dynamics breathe with verisimilitude. Presner's wounds are deep and real, his neuroses relatable, and he simply feels worth rooting for. . . . The reader's patience is amply rewarded by Eron's talent as the story evolves and he deftly weaves together memories with subtlety and grace."-Blueink Review
"This erudite and bittersweet not-quite comedy from Eron (And Go to Innisfree) takes readers through the life and travails of the pensive Presner, a playwright and one-time attorney who has spent 13 years working nights at Tyson's 24-Hour News and Smoke, as he navigates his various relationships and the memories of his late sister, Sara, an actress. Presner is working on a play about a man who drudges through a job but afterwards shores up "the very foundations of the world with his cryptic wit and wisdom." Eron reveals that just a couple pages in, but the idea powers the novel as a whole. . . . The narrative delves deep into the themes of grief, self-discovery, and the power of storytelling to heal the soul. . . . Eron's prose, for all its richness of reference, is at its best direct and candid, expressing much in a minimum of words, depicting human resilience and selfhood while never going sentimental."-BookLife
"Death plays a prominent role in Presner's life, as it does in the Anton Chekhov plays he emulates. Because of this, he's developed stoicism, solitude, and compassion. He's a self-proclaimed underdog. . . . He's the butt of his own jokes. . . . He's a show-off in conversations with others. . . . He becomes remarkable."-Foreword Clarion (four stars)
"Presner is like a latter-day Bellow or Roth protagonist, navigating evergreen crises of aging and failure; Eron updates this tradition with Gen X concerns about art and authenticity."-Kirkus Reviews
