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WORK TITLE: Bosstown
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Irvington
STATE: NY
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-abramowitz-07b02240/ * https://us.macmillan.com/author/adamabramowitz/
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married, wife’s name Adrienne (a poet): children: two.
EDUCATION:Graduate of the University of Massachusetts.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, novelist, and teacher. Teacher in Mount Vernon, NY. Previously worked as a courier, bartender, doorman, and at Nick’s Cheap and Friendly Moving Company, Boston, MA.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Adam Abramowitz grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, in the neighborhoods of Allston and the South End. In his debut novel, Bosstown, Abramowitz tells the story of a bike messenger in Boston named Zesty Meyers, who finds himself involved with the city’s underworld while still trying to escape his family’s gangster past. This dark past is in danger of being uncovered if bodies and other secrets are dug up during the “Big Dig,” Boston’s Central Artery/Tunnel Project that rerouted the central artery of Interstate 93 in the early 1990s.
Abramowitz, who once worked as a courier, told DigBoston website contributor M.J. Tidwell that the character of Zesty is somewhat based on himself, adding: “A lot of it is so real.” In the same interview, Abramowitz noted that the book “was very much written for people who had lived in Boston. For those who haven’t lived in Boston a long time, to give them a taste of what it was like, and for those who were here at the beginning, give a little wink and a nod. It really is a love letter to Boston.”
Zesty’s father is Will Meyers, a former backroom poker king who was also a political fixer. Will is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease but still has the wherewithal to realize that the Big Dig is carving itself through some of the tough neighborhoods where Will knows secrets lie buried. Furthermore, Zesty’s mother long ago went underground after being part of an armed robbery in which a cop was killed. When an armored car robbery goes violently wrong, Zesty finds himself implicated after getting hit by a car while working as a bike messenger. It turns out that the car, a gold Buick, hit him on purpose in an effort to get the money that Zesty was unknowingly carrying in his messenger bag.
Zesty subsequently discovers that the client for whom he was delivering the package claims that Zesty never picked it up. It turns out the package contained $50,000, which has subsequently disappeared. As a result, Zesty finds himself being pressured by the cops, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and a legendary gangster. They are all looking for the armed-car robbery money. Eventually, some of them even begin to think they may be able to get the money that disappeared from the long-ago bank heist Zesty’s mother was believed to have been part of and that is based partially on a real-life 1970 robbery that got Brandeis student Katherine Power on the FBI’s Most Wanted list until she turned herself in in 1993. In the novel, Zesty realizes his chances of living long are dwindling fast, and that he has to use all the skills he learned both from his father and as a daredevil bike messenger if he is going to survive. The novel also includes a subplot involving Boston’s music scene and rock clubs.
“Abramowitz brings Boston alive with rich descriptions and caffeine-fueled dialogue,” wrote a Publishers Weekly contributor. Calling Bosstown an “entertaining-enough thriller … built on a social history of a flawed American city,” a Kirkus Reviews contributor also noted that the story includes “a rueful sense of what gentrification hath wrought and of Boston’s seemingly intractable segregation.” Writing for the Jerusalem Post Online, David Brinn commented that native Bostonians or people who have lived in Boston would especially enjoy the book as Abramowitz is adept at capturing the city’s landmarks and neighborhoods. Brinn went on to remark in the review that “The clichés of hard-boiled detectives, basketball-crazy drug dealers, and sleazy record producers are given a fresh turn by Abramowitz’s skill at dialogue. If it’s an updated twist on an old-fashioned whodunit that you’re looking for, Bosstown delivers the goods with a ‘Bawstin’ accent.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, June 15, 2017, review Bosstown.
Publishers Weekly, June 12, 2017, review of Bosstown, p. 42.
ONLINE
DigBoston, https://digboston.com/ (August 1, 2017), M.J. Tidwell, “Bosstown: New Novel Navigates Big Dig Era Boston,” author interview.
Jerusalem Post Online, http://www.jpost.com/ (January 11, 2018 ), David Brinn, “Bosstown Rocks.”
ADAM ABRAMOWITZ grew up in Allston and Boston’s South End working as a courier, bartender, doorman, and long-time mover at Nick’s Cheap and Friendly Moving Company. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts Boston, Adam currently teaches in Mount Vernon, NY. He lives with his wife, the poet Adrienne Abramowitz, and their two children in Irvington, New York. Bosstown is his debut novel.
Adam Abramowitz grew up in Allston and Boston's South End, working as a courier, bartender, doorman, and longtime mover at Nick's Cheap and Friendly Moving Company. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Boston, Adam currently teaches at the Amani Public Charter School in Mount Vernon, New York. He lives with his wife, the poet Adrienne Abramowitz, and their two children in Irvington, New York.
BOSSTOWN: NEW NOVEL NAVIGATES BIG DIG ERA BOSTON
August 1, 2017 By M.J. TIDWELL Leave a Comment
A Q&A with homegrown Boston author Adam Abramowitz
“Everything you’ve heard about Boston drivers is true: Signaling is for the weak. Sideview mirrors are purely decorative. Stop signs are optional.”
And for caffeine-fueled bike messenger Zesty, a run-in with a car door is not a matter of if, but when.
In Boston native Adam Abramowitz’s debut novel Bosstown, it’s not a car door that gets him but instead, a gold Buick aiming for the cash he unknowingly carries in his messenger bag. Bosstown is an adrenaline-pumped, free-wheeling dive into Boston during the Big Dig where Abramowitz mixes a zany zigzag of youthful storytelling with a nostalgic homage to a changing city.
He’ll talk more about his book at the Brookline Booksmith on Aug 9, just a day after Bosstown is officially released. Ahead of the talk, I met up with Abramowitz in the South End across from a fancy brick apartment building Abramowitz tells me used to be a laundromat where he (and Zesty) could use a pay phone.
A central part of this book is Boston changing and gentrifying, using the Big Dig as a time marker. What would you say has changed most about Boston in your lifetime?
Boston used to tolerate fuckups, basically. It used to be a place where you could afford to live here with jobs that aren’t professional. I’ve worked in the moving business, in an ice cream shop … [you] used to be able to just cobble shit together. It let you grow into the city. That’s the biggest change. Now that it’s so expensive … it’s kind of lost that friendliness and ability to … let people figure out who they want to be. But I still love Boston so much. I love Boston in that way you love an old girlfriend or boyfriend who totally screwed you over. The book, to me, is a love letter to Boston. I wanted my kids to know … that I was just knockin’ around and shit was just happening all the time … that this is the way the city was.
When you wrote this book, were you thinking about connecting with Boston locals to kind of reexperience that sense of what it used to be like, or were you thinking of giving the outside world a taste of Boston?
It was very much written for people who had lived in Boston. For those who haven’t lived in Boston a long time, to give them a taste of what it was like, and for those who were here at the beginning, give a little wink and a nod. It really is a love letter to Boston. You chewed me up, you spit me out, you hurt me so bad, but I still love you. I can’t get over you!
So, how much of the book is actually based on your own bittersweet experiences?
It’s funny, they made me get a Facebook … and all of a sudden people from my past pop up. And one happens to work in the film industry, so we sent him a copy of the book. A few days later, he writes back, “Hey Zesty…” So, yes I am Zesty. I’m ashamed and I’m proud at the same time.
The addresses, the loft where he lives, that is where I actually lived. Harrison Avenue and Baker Street were exactly as I said in the book … A lot of it is so real.
Poker is a key plot device in the book.
I’m not a gambler. I play poker, but I don’t gamble, I like to say, because poker is a skill game. I was drawn to poker early on. I grew up in communes in Allston in the ’70s. There used to be this great big penny poker game at the Spanish House commune; it was in the former Spanish consulate on Commonwealth Avenue.
Poker was a huge thing for me. When I moved into [Boston], I would run a few games at the moving company where I worked. We used to have these backroom poker games. And then when I moved to New York City, I bumped into somebody who said, “Oh, there’s this poker game on Monday nights. It’s all stand-up comedians.” So my entry in there was Sarah Silverman … Sarah’s older sister is married to my brother. It used to be every Monday night. The game would start at 10 pm and go til about 5 in the morning, and then we’d all go out to breakfast.
What is it about poker?
The skill. And… well… you’re expected to lie. You’re not expected to tell the truth. And everyone knows that everyone else is trying to screw them, and yet you sit at that table in relative peace and harmony, telling lies to each other.
And even with skill, you still have to depend on Lady Luck to be with you. Sometimes you just have to give it up and hope for the best.
As a first-time book author, what was the process like? What was most surprising, most challenging?
The best part was realizing how much I lived in this city. How much I did, and really did it in the way I wanted to do it. I wasn’t chasing money. I certainly wasn’t chasing fame. It just allowed me to grow into who I really felt that I was. And that was just the best thing to realize that. So much of [the book] is true, and I wanted that to be recorded.
The hardest part was two parts: one, the realization that it will never be this way again. Just like I’ve changed in many ways, the city’s changed. In some ways for the better, in some ways for the worse. The other part was that I didn’t get a chance to put everything that I wanted into the book. But there’s the next book!
How many car doors have you hit in your life as a bike messenger?
I’ve hit four car doors, and I’ve gone through a cab windshield and walked away. That was exciting, that one. The crazy thing is—and Zesty will talk about it in the second book—the more you get hit, the more invincible you feel. You keep walking away from it.
You don’t feel like you’re using up your chances?
No, that didn’t enter my mind. Zesty goes through a bunch of bikes, and that’s really his attitude. I felt that way too. And boy is that a dangerous way to go through life.
ADAM ABRAMOWITZ. BOSSTOWN. WED 8.9. BROOKLINE BOOKSMITH, 279 HARVARD ST., BROOKLINE. 7PM/FREE. BROOKLINEBOOKSMITH.COM
Abramowitz, Adam: BOSSTOWN
Kirkus Reviews. (June 15, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Abramowitz, Adam BOSSTOWN Thomas Dunne Books (Adult Fiction) $25.99 8, 8 ISBN: 978-1-250-07629-8
A Boston bike messenger finds himself implicated in a robbery that digs up skeletons from his family's past.Zesty Meyers has a colorful background, with a political-fixer father who was the Hub's king of illegal poker games and a radical mother who's been underground since taking part in an armed robbery that left a cop dead. After Zesty is hit by a car in the course of his messenger duties, he finds that the client he just picked up a package from denies he ever came for the package. And since it contained $50,000 that has now disappeared, Zesty finds himself under pressure from the cops and the money's shady owners. The plot isn't as clearly told as it might be. And does every young character in fiction who opts out of mainstream life have to have such sketchy personal cleanliness and lack of financial responsibility? It doesn't help that the hero has been saddled with the name of a second-rate burlesque queen. But the book has a long, long memory for Boston rock clubs (some of them wiped out in fires of suspicious origin) and the bands of the city's punk era (extra points for name-checking the great all-female metal group Malachite, which, at its glorious best, was louder than God) as well as a rueful sense of what gentrification hath wrought and of Boston's seemingly intractable segregation. The bank robbery that's part of the story has roots in the 1970 robbery that sent Brandeis student Katherine Power on the run and on to the FBI's Most Wanted list. This entertaining-enough thriller is built on a social history of a flawed American city.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Abramowitz, Adam: BOSSTOWN." Kirkus Reviews, 15 June 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495428034/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d73bb3ab. Accessed 14 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495428034
Bosstown
Publishers Weekly. 264.24 (June 12, 2017): p42.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Bosstown
Adam Abramowitz. St. Martin's/Dunne, $25.99 (352p) ISBN 978-1-250-07629-8
The Big Dig is underway and the urban renewal that's following in its wake threatens to reveal Boston's long-buried secrets, in Abramowitz's promising debut. Will Meyers once operated the backroom poker games where political deals were cut and problems fixed. Suffering from dementia, Will is running out of time and memory; he has one last fix to make before it's too late. Meanwhile, Will's son, Zesty, races through Boston's maze of streets delivering packages by bike, never planning his future further ahead than the next pickup. But when a pickup leads to a near fatal hit and run, Zesty can no longer outrace his family's past. With the FBI, the police, and a legendary gangster looking for the money from both a recent armed-car robbery and a long-ago bank heist involving Zesty's mother, Zesty must use every trick he's ever learned to keep himself from becoming part of the body count. The plot occasionally gets lost among the verbiage, but Abramowitz brings Boston alive with rich descriptions and caffeine-fueled dialogue. Agent: Meg Ruley, Jane Rotrosen Agency. (Aug.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Bosstown." Publishers Weekly, 12 June 2017, p. 42. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A495720653/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=d94e75c8. Accessed 14 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A495720653
Jerusalem Post Israel News Culture News
BOSSTOWN ROCKS
Adam Abramowitz’s first novel brings an updated twist to an old-fashioned whodunit, with a strong New England accent helping things along.
BY DAVID BRINN JANUARY 11, 2018 18:44
ou don’t have to be a hard-boiled Bostonian to enjoy Adam Abramowitz’s speed-crazed novel Bosstown, but it sure helps.
Funny and clever, with a motley cast of Beantown scruffs jostling for survival, power and fortune, the book updates the modus operandi of traditionalists like Mickey Spillane with a shiny, post-modern sheen.
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Abramowitz, a teacher in New York (and the brother of Israel’s Captain Sunshine Yosef Abramowitz), grew up in the urban jungle of Boston’s South End and the working-class Alston suburb, and worked as a courier, doorman and mover. Those experiences provide the inspiration for Bosstown’s foundation, told from the point of view of Zesty Meyers, a wise-cracking, morally ambiguous but overall likable young bike messenger who falls into a world of gangs, cops, burglaries, dark family secrets and FBI informants – not necessarily in that order.
The book travels at a speed commensurate with Zesty’s bike skills, overflowing with hip noir and snappy, clipped street dialogue from sordid characters rapping out enough vernacular that it may take a couple of repeat readings of certain lines to comprehend what it is being said.
But it’s worth the effort, as Abramowitz’s plot development ties in all the disparate events and characters that flow out of the woodwork and ultimately leave the reader on the edge of his seat wondering how it’s all going to play out, and if Zesty is going to survive to ride another day.
It’s not the usual fare for a nice Jewish boy, but then again, not many gritty crime novels feature treatises on de Tocqueville or debates on the morality of militant organizations like the Weather Underground from the 1960s.
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That’s not to say that Bosstown approaches anything close to highbrow fare – its heart is squarely in the gutter. But it’s a heart fueled by self-deprecating humor, insight into human character and ultimately, doing the right thing. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to see Bosstown being adapted as an HBO or Amazon mini-series with someone like James Franco in the lead.
Those familiar with Boston will likely enjoy the book with an extra measure, as Abramowitz brings to life the landmarks of the city and captures Boylston Street, the Big Dig and the Back Bay so vividly, you almost start talking without using ‘r’s.
The subplot involving the heralded Boston music scene is also accurate to the T, and music fans will appreciate the insider mentions of local heroes like The Neighborhoods, Robin Lane and the Chartbusters and WBCN’s Rock & Roll Rumble.
The clichés of hard-boiled detectives, basketball-crazy drug dealers and sleazy record producers are given a fresh turn by Abramowitz’s skill at dialogue. If it’s an updated twist on an old-fashioned whodunit that you’re looking for, Bosstown delivers the goods with a “Bawstin” accent.