By FRED WAITZKIN
The Dream Merchant
Novel
The Dream Merchant explores the capacity of a good person to do bad things. Jim is a charismatic and caring, yet increasingly flawed salesman who becomes an addicted gambler, womanizer and criminal as he wins over countless people through his charms and a series of financial scams. Just as quickly as his fortunes rise, he loses everything, leaving people ruined in his wake.
Synopsis
Fred Waitzkin’s first novel is a powerful, sexy, and exquisitely written heart-of-darkness tale of an unusually gifted, irrepressible and indefatigable salesman who must find redemption in his old age.
The Dream Merchant explores the capacity of a good person to do bad things. Jim is a charismatic and caring, yet increasingly flawed salesman who becomes an addicted gambler, womanizer and criminal as he wins over countless people through his charms and a series of financial scams. Just as quickly as his fortunes rise, he loses everything, leaving people ruined in his wake. Eventually, he becomes a modern Lord Jim, operating a lawless and violent gold mining operation in the Brazilian jungle south of Manaus. As an old man, he meets Mara, a beautiful young Israeli woman with dark ambitions of her own. Young Mara is the embodiment of that gaudy heedless time in the Amazon, and her ulterior motives are acceptable to Jim, dark as they turn out to be. In the process of their unlikely life together the girl finds herself turned on by this old man, as if his profligate history of glory and big money, and finally his weakness and proximity to death in her embrace, create an urgency that is erotically charged.
Narrated by a writer equally mesmerized and, at times, repulsed by this larger-than-life character, the novel recalls classics by Hemingway and Fitzgerald, Marquez and Roth.
“Both a celebration and a send-up of the American dream, its eternal allure
– BOOKLIST REVIEW
“The Dream Merchant is a Masterpiece. A cross between Death of a Salesman and Heart of Darkness. I believe that in the not-too-distant future, we will be referring to Waitzkin’s novel as a classic.”
– ANITA SHREVE
“Waitzkin offers a singular and haunting morality tale, sophisticated, literary and intelligent. Thoroughly entertaining. Deeply imaginative. Highly recommended.”
– KIRKUS STARRED REVIEW
“Fred Waitzkin took me into a world of risk and violence and salvation that I was loath to
– SEBASTIAN JUNGER
“Brutal, erotic and poignant. A man’s search for self and home in a culture of illusion. Waitzkin’s propulsive narrative makes for compelling reading from first to last. A triumph.”