Published by Sagging Meniscus on October 1, 2017.
Available at Asterism, IndieBound, Amazon, or your favorite independent bookstore.
JRZDVLZ (pronounced “Jersey Devils”) is the autobiography of a sympathetic beast on a centuries-spanning quest for redemption. Based on long-suffering legend and historical fact, it’s about the transformation of a monster into a man. Also about Ben Franklin, Joseph Wharton, and the struggle for control of an enormous aquifer beneath the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
“Lee Klein’s JRZDVLZ is as ingenious and compelling a composite as the Jersey Devil itself: part bildungsroman, part travelogue, part urban history, part fable, part mythopoeic romance that’s also a profound meditation on isolation and a searing document of self-invention. Benjamin Franklin would be delighted and disturbed. Imagine a shape-shifting, immortal Elephant Man stalking the pages of Ragtime and The Sot-Weed Factor and Mason & Dixon, and you’ll have an idea of what lies within this extraordinary novel.”
—Josh Emmons, author of A Moral Tale and Other Moral Tales
“Finished JRZDVLZ last night. Loved the inner workings of this character’s very complex personality, wanting so badly to be human yet treasuring his ability to fly and soar when necessary despite the burden of his strange body. The struggle we all have of taming the beast within. The eternal battle of rectifying the inside with the outside. There’s lots of dark humor in this book but I think what prevails most for me is Merriweather’s self-doubting nature, wanting to fit in, to attain his version of normality. His sense of being an alien, learning rules of society that will never fully accept him. Never revealing his true nature either to himself or the world around him. A real struggle for authenticity.”
— Barbara Klein (author’s mother)
“This is a strange book. Can’t say it was an enjoyable one to read although Mr. Klein is undoubtedly a very good writer, technically very adapt wordsmith, enjoyed some the descriptive-narrative tone of voice although it did become for me a bit monotonous after so many pages . . . I wish Mr. Klein would put his considerable talents to more understandable and relevant storylines, furthermore I would respectfully suggest breaking it up into more chapters, less descriptive narration more various use of first, second and third person, and a story that has relevance to something anything relating to our present confusing lives.”
— Herman, on Goodreads.
Available at Asterism, IndieBound, Amazon, or your favorite independent bookstore.