Leaving Eastern Parkway

By Matthew Daub

A family tragedy forces a Jewish teenage handball prodigy in Brooklyn to examine his identity in this engaging, debut coming-of-age novel.

1991. A fifteen-year-old Hasidic boy living in Crown Heights, Zev Altshul can hardly imagine life without handball. He has a gift for it, and that’s why he’s risking everything to play in a tournament on the Sabbath. But just as he worries about getting caught, his parents are killed in a hit-and-run and everything changes. Now his biggest worry is about where he will live . . .

At first, Zev is placed into the care of a family within his close-knit, closed community. But when that arrangement becomes problematic, Zev heads to Urbana, Illinois, to stay with his sister, Frida. The trouble is that she left the Jewish faith behind years ago, and going to her means Zev must turn his back on the only sort of life he knows.

The culture shock is intense. At first, it’s just changes to his hair and wardrobe. But then there are things like Star Wars, Shakespeare, Twin Peaks, and pepperoni pizza. It’s a world full of choices he’s never had to consider. And now, like it or not, he must decide the type of man he wants to be . . .

Praise for Leaving Eastern Parkway

“What a wonderful, evocative, gripping book—it reminds me of the thrill I had when I read Potok novels many years ago!” —Jeremy Dauber, professor at Columbia University and author of Jewish Comedy:A Serious History

“An authentic look at the joys and failings of insular religious culture as well as a trenchant depiction of the mind of a teenage boy dealing with trauma and dramatic change. When you enter the world created by Daub, you are transfixed. When you leave, you are wiser for the experience.” —Stuart Rojstaczer, author of The Mathematician’s Shiva

“Zev’s story is filled with memorable characters and hard-won wisdom, and the Yiddish and Hebrew that appear throughout lend authenticity. . . It adds up to a surprisingly universal coming-of-age novel about being true to oneself in a world that demands otherwise.” —Publishers Weekly

• Language: English
• Publisher: Delphinium Books
• Release date: Sep 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781504080231

Matthew Daub

Matthew Daub is an artist and writer. His career as a visual artist has spanned more than four decades. His watercolor paintings and drawings have been widely exhibited at galleries and museums throughout the United States, including numerous invitational exhibitions at institutions such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, and The National Academy of Design. In 1991 The Metropolitan Museum featured a Daub watercolor in their annual engagement calendar, American Watercolors. He has written dozens of articles for nationally distributed art magazines as well as a monograph on the artist, Carolyn Plochmann. Matthew retired after 32 years as a university art professor to devote full-time to his writing. Leaving Eastern Parkway is Matthew Daub’s first novel.

Reviews for Leaving Eastern Parkway

[Adele · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A fabulous debut novel - I wish there was an author's note so I could hear more about the inspiration for it. It is beautifully written and compelling, will keep you turning pages, reflections on Brooklyn and handball, growing up in an isolated community and breaking free. I loved it!