The Ringer

Renowned humorist Bill Scheft stretches comedic singles into stand-up triples through the oddest of couples in this hilarious debut novel.

Morton Martin Spell, a once-brilliant, now-infirm seventy-five-year-old writer has begun to slide into a state of delirium. He thinks Mount Sinai Hospital is an exclusive golf course and his catheter is a gym bag. His only link to reality is his terminally unambitious thirty-five-year-old nephew, who makes his living as a hired gun for thirteen softball teams and still goes by the name College Boy.

But College Boy's body has begun to betray him -- almost as much as his lack of ambition. (His only legitimate paycheck comes from a once-a-week gig as an in-studio laugher on a drive-time morning radio show.) Not only that, The Dirt King, a small-time gangster who controls all the replacement soil in Central Park, is after him. As their lives collide, College Boy takes refuge in the arms of Sheila, his uncle's cleaning woman and a part-time call girl. And then it gets weird.

Bill Scheft is the author of The Ringer and The Best of the Show: A Classic Collection of Wit and Wisdom. He spent eleven years as head monologue writer for David Letterman. He lives in New York City.