The Book of Norman, A Novel

“I can't think of many novels that … manage to be intelligent and sympathetic to not one but two oft-misunderstood American religions…. Quite a feat.” Mark Oppenheimer, religion columnist, The New York Times

Allan Appel, born in Chicago and raised in Los Angeles, is a prize-winning novelist and playwright whose books include Club Revelation, High Holiday Sutra, winner of a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, and The Rabbi of Casino Boulevard, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. His work has appeared in The National Jewish Monthly, The Progressive, National Lampoon,and Tablet, and his plays have been produced in New York, Chicago, New Haven, Provincetown, and points in between. The Excommunication of Mrs. Eaton, about Puritan theocracy in early New Haven, won the Connecticut Heritage Productions full-length play award in 2011. He has published a total of 14 books, including eight novels. Among his plays, Dear Heartsey, a staged adaptation based on the 1733 correspondence of colonial New Yorker Abigail Franks, was commissioned by the American Jewish Historical Society, and was presented in a staged reading, starring Anne Jackson and Eli Wallach. His play The Catcher Wears Two Masks, based on the life of 1930s Major Leaguer and early atomic spy Moe Berg, was developed at the Actors Studio in New York City and received a staged reading at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan. His most recent novel, The Hebrew Tutor of Bel Air (Coffee House Press, 2010) is being optioned for television. His new novel, The Book of Norman, about Mormon-Jewish relations in 1960s Beach Boys L.A., with basketball-playing angels, is slated for publication next year by Mandel Vilar Press. Appel has received two fellowships in fiction from the Connecticut State Office of Arts and Tourism. The father of two children and husband of one wife, Allan Appel lives in New Haven where for the last decade he has been a staff writer for the online New Haven Independent.