The Catholic Koufax

About the Book

In a small town on the Jersey side of the Palisades, the desperate lonliness of adolescence and a strange mix of race and culture collide during the turbulent 60's. Bill Gleeson has fashioned a big city play just a few miles from Manhattan, a short boat ride across the Hudson River. Whitey Larkin is a fish out of that flawed murky water, an orphan boy, shy and sensitive, struggling to be heard, struggling to find his place in the world. In his way is the comic character of his Aunt Nuala, the half wicked, mostly conflicted step parent determined to raise him up right in a volatile era. Equally memorable is the character of Larkin, the unemployed bumbling husband, Whitey's adopted father. Throw in an escaped Nazi fresh off an Argentinian banana boat that sets the whole cast spinning in comic circles, and you've got that rare combination of a play, one that is both moving and laugh out loud funny.

About the Author

Bill Gleeson, M.A. is the author of an acclaimed short story collection, The Last Days of the Hudson Hotel. He has published three volumes of poetry: Osborne Street Attic Blues, Forty-Sixth Street, and Ten Days of Blue Sky. He lives in northern New Jersey with his wife and three children. The Catholic Koufax is his first dramatic comedy.