‘You’re in for a great ride of twists and turns. A novel for our time. Irresistible.’
— Odile Hellier, author of Village Voices

It’s July 1996 and Sherry McManus is in bed with Thomas G. Paine. It’s their second night together. Sherry and Tom play a game in bed, telling each other stories — word play as sex play. Sherry finds Tom charming, but she’s been around the block in love. She wonders whether to stay or slip away. She asks herself: Is the pursuit of happiness worth the risk?

Sherry and Tom are New Yorkers. Sherry, 44, is a photographer of musicians in concert. Tom, 43, is a formerly best-selling author who hasn’t published a book in seven years. Separated for the last year from his wife, Jessica, a columnist at the Village Voice, he lives alone at their beach house, trying to write.

Sherry proves to be a captivating storyteller. She unspools her life, man by man, against the political backdrop of her youth – the Vietnam protests, the women’s movement, black/white relations, the Cold War. Tom talks about his insecurities as a writer, about truth versus fiction, about his roots. He is unrelated to Tom Paine the revolutionary, in fact he’s one-eighth Apache, but he has a complicated family history that he hints is connected to both his writer’s block and the break-up of his marriage.

Tom has built his career writing contemporary novels under the titles of his revolutionary namesake: Common Sense, The American Crisis. As his love affair with Sherry deepens, he begins a new book. Tom tells Sherry that she’s inspired him, but he refuses to talk about his writing, saying he fears it could jinx him. And there the trouble begins…

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The Rites of Man, published by Ten 16 Press, will be released on Dec. 3. Pre-orders will begin in mid-November. Watch this space.