ROCKAWAY

An extraordinary new novel from the author of The List and A Child Out of Alcatraz. Rockaway is a love letter in a time capsule to a quirky, singular town in a time before it was forever changed, along with the rest of the country, by the events of September 2001, and again when it was devastated eleven years later by Hurricane Sandy.

Rockaway Beach, Summer 2001. Sarah, a painter from southern California, retreats to this eccentric, eclectic beach town in the far reaches of Queens with the hopes of rediscovering her passion for painting. Sarah has the opportunity for a real gallery showing if she can only show that she is capable of creating something new and interesting. At Rockaway she hopes to escape a placid existence caught in the stasis of caregiving for her elderly parents and working at an art supply store instead of producing works of her own. Sarah’s “painting retreat” gets more interesting when she meets Marty, an older musician who plays the summer music festivals. Marty’s devotion to his music and to his Jewish faith provoke an unexpected response from Sarah that influences painting, and her life.

Tara Ison has been described by Carolyn See as “an important new voice in fiction.” In addition to her novels, her short fiction and essays have been published in Tin House, The Kenyon Review, Nerve.com, Publishers Weekly, and numerous anthologies. Ison is currently Assistant Professor of Fiction at Arizona State University and, in another life, co-wrote the cult film Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.