A re-imagining of Benjamin Franklin you will not soon forget... - Walter Isaacson, Author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and Steve Jobs
A grand and gorgeous book! I devoured it! The pleasures of prose, passion, and intelligence pervade these pages... Fitzgerald is that rarest of birds: a great writer and a great soul. – Michael Zuckerman, PhD, Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania.
Benjamin Franklin has been confined to a private apartment in the Plantation of the Unrepentant for the past two-plus centuries. Instead of contemplating his ‘errata,’ however, Ben has added 12 more volumes to his Autobiography. Toward forcing the issue, Ben is brought before a panel of examiners, one of whom, disconcertingly, is the man who was largely responsible for Ben’s undeserved womanizer rap: John Adams. By the end of Ben’s examination, in which the sins of the Patre Patriae are brought devastatingly to fore, Ben fully expects to be cast into the abyss. Instead, he’s invited to bear witness to what’s become of the United States in the two-plus centuries of his absence. Ben’s odyssey of witness begins at his birth site in Boston, passes through New York (where Ben upstages a conference at the Waldorf Astoria), and ends, with wrenching poignancy, at his gravesite in Philadelphia. Interwoven into the main story is a second, this one beginning in the red-carpeted parlors of the West Wing and ending in the bloodstained streets of West Philadelphia. Eventually, the paralleling stories collide, like massive tectonic plates, in a stunning series of shocks and aftershocks. Following in the traditions of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, and Dante’s Divine Comedy, Poor Richard’s Lament, nine years in the writing, is an intricately woven, ultimately uplifting tale of hope and redemption, written in close consonance with the avuncular and aphoristic persona of Benjamin Franklin, Printer. Back Story...
Please note: Poor Richard's Lament is available at Hobblebush Books. Click the blue "BUY BOOK" button which will re-direct you to the Hobblebush Books shopping cart page.