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Killing Jack Armstrong

“Lucky Jack” Stone (born Jacob Gluckstein) is the son of Ruth Taub, an Orthodox Jewish girl, and an anti-war activist known to her only as “Jack Armstrong,” after the radio hero. Pregnant and abandoned by her lover after their brief encounter at the Woodstock festival, Ruth is banished from her community and forced to marry Ezra Gluckstein, a cold, cruel storekeeper, who makes her life and her son’s life miserable for twelve years. After Gluckstein’s death, she tells her son her story and young Jack vows to find and kill his father. As Jack matures he becomes a real estate broker and poker hustler and his vow fades in importance until an event occurs which sets him off on a determined search once and for all to find and kill the man once called “Jack Armstrong.”

"This novel is right up there with the very best—I might even say outta sight, and far out!”

—  Jon Michael Miller for Readers’ Favorite

"Through the intimate voice of this new American hero, readers will remember their own, earlier pledges to get even. Killing Jack Armstrong is an engaging novel of an unusual coming of age.” 

—  M.E. Hughes, Letting Go, An Anthology of Attempts (Bacon Press); Precious in His Sight (Viking Penguin); Out of Her Mind, Women Writing about Madness (Random House)

About the Author

Bob Bachner is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He practices real estate law in New York City where he lives with his wife, Barbara Bachner, a multi-media artist. His daughter, Suzanne Bachner, is a playwright and director. Killing Jack Armstrong is his third novel. It was a finalist in the 2020-2021 Faulkner/Wisdom Competition as was Last Clear Chance in 2015. Bob’s stories have appeared in several magazines and two one-act plays have been produced.

BACHNER

New Meridian Arts

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