If you’re Emily Dickinson, it’s okay.
You can be born in Amherst, live in Amherst, and die in Amherst. You can go to your grave unheralded.
And then some interfering busybody will publish your poems, and you’ll be famous. Even rich, though only in absentia because by that time, you’ll be . . . elsewhere.
Dear Reader, I am no Emily Dickinson. I find it necessary to promote my own writings while I am still here.
Not that it will make me famous or rich. But I would like somebody to read what I have written.
This is especially true of a little book called Izzy Strikes Gold!, published in July 2024. My second novel. The one nearest my heart.
If you wish to dismiss it, you may call it a middle-grade novel, because that means only pre-teen children should read it.
But here’s a news flash: I wrote it for everybody.
Izzy Mahler is a bright and inquisitive lad, age twelve, the class shrimp in a small Midwestern town. Not everything is going well in his life, but he’s accumulating friends—one by one, almost without being aware of it. And he has private knowledge of a hoard of shiny metal. That could be gold, and gold could help.
The story is set in the Sometimes-But-Not-Always Fabulous Fifties, which lends it a certain charm for those who remember the era, or a sense of wonder for those who have never been there. The kids who inhabit the Fifties are just like kids now—only in a gentler world.
Izzy Strikes Gold! is a charming, sometimes sad, but always honest look at growing up in America, then or now.
It is what we used to call a coming-of-age story.
Did I mention it builds to a Christmastime climax?
This story is too good to be restricted to middle-schoolers. You can read it too.
Izzy Strikes Gold! is a book for anyone who was ever twelve years old, or ever will be. You can read it with your grandchildren.
It’s available on Amazon, but why not skip Jeff Bezos and give his share directly to my great Wisconsin publisher at https://henschelhausbooks.com/product/izzy-strikes-gold/. (My royalty will be the same in either case.)
I hope you enjoy the read.
Blessings,
Larry F. Sommers
Your New Favorite Writer
