Reaching your 30s, you realize that you are professionally unsatisfied and have dated with no visible results. You write two novels and a memoir, collecting three rejections over four years. In a bookstore, looking for a “funny, quick read for the train,” you notice that such books are geared toward women. That same day, you begin writing to fill that perceived void in the market. Seven weeks and 45,000 words later, your novel is finished. Critics call the book — written in second person with an unnamed narrator — original and inventive. After your book sells, you meet your soul mate. While planning your wedding, you decide to move out to Los Angeles and try to sell the book as a screenplay. In the process, you become not only an established writer but a singles success story.

This is the story of composer-turned-novelist and bachelor-turned-newlywed David Israel, author of “Behind Everyman,” “a novel for guys and the
women who rescue them” that critics called “high-concept lad lit debut afloat
with wry humor, earnest romance and endearingly dopey self-doubt.”


For more of the article, my column in this week’s Jewish Week, click here.

And madd props to Hilary for introducing me to the book (and the author) to begin with.