Synopsis

In the suburbs of New Jersey, where temple gossip flows like Manischewitz wine, eleven-year-old Andy becomes entangled in a whirlwind of maternal quirks and religious intrigue. His mother’s bizarre obsession with Rabbi Landy transforms their once-quiet life above a candy store into a tale of surprises.

Andy’s world features a colorful a fiery sister, an invisible brother, a precociously sexual savant best friend with green teeth, and a foul-mouthed neighbor who rivals the 50-Foot Woman. As he navigates from confusion to understanding, his journey is filled with humor and heartfelt moments.

When forced into yeshiva with the rabbi’s insufferable sons, Andy becomes drawn to his magnetic Talmud teacher, Rabbi Loobling. His exploration of faith, desire, and family secrets unfolds from the streets of the Garden State to the halls of college, revealing the complex adults around him.

Rabbis of the Garden State delivers a sharp look at synagogue life laced with teenage yearning. This powerful portrayal of suburban Jewish life in the ’60s is both funny and moving. As Andy transitions to adulthood, the mysteries of childhood unravel, exposing secrets and deep truths about family, faith, and the unexpected twists of love. Daniel Meltz’s beautifully crafted debut novel captures the spirit of an era and delves into the timeless questions of belonging, belief, and the complicated relationships that shape us all.

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This book releases on April 8th, 2025

Praise

“Roll over Philip Roth and Saul Bellow. Poet Daniel Meltz has written a Jewish growing-up/coming-of-age novel that will knock your socks off. Wry, hilariously funny, deftly touching, emotionally accurate about being an adolescent, a perfect piece of sociology about suburban Jewish families and their complicated relationship to religion and its leaders, Rabbis of The Garden State is also swooningly, deliciously, romantically—gay!” —Felice Picano, author of The Secret Lives of Children

“ Rabbis of The Garden State is an absolute joy from beginning to end. Fresh and funny and charming, it brings to mind Holden Caulfield if he had had a sense of humor and gone to yeshiva. It concerns a divorced mother and her eleven-year-old gay son, both struggling with forbidden loves in the not-so-swinging 1960s. It mines those secret spaces of childhood as a bright-but-awkward gay kid experiences those first longings for other boys (and one hot rabbi) while at the same time learns that his out-of-control mother might be schtupping a different rabbi…who also happens to be her (fake) psychoanalyst. The most delicious and poignant mayhem ensues. I loved every minute of it!” —Blair Fell, best-selling author of The Sign for Home and writer for Queer As Folk

“Entertaining as hell.” —Oren Rudavsky, director of The Treatment and Hiding and Seeking

“With an F in Deportment from his sixth-grade teacher and a dangerously needy mother, whip-smart Andy Baer at the outset of “Rabbis of the Garden State” Is riding “the line between brat and delinquent” (this state of affairs doesn’t include what he does with the skeevy Georgie Garr downstairs). As Andy comes of age in the lubricious 60s and 70s, both mother and son fall obsessively in love with rabbis who cross the line. Can they be stopped? Against a screen of priceless period detail—Maypo, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, The Secret Storm, anyone?—Meltz detonates hilarious and bitter truths about sex, family, and mercy in his marvelous fiction debut.” —James McGruder, author of Vamp Until Ready

Excerpt

“What am I going to do with you?” she said.

She was driving like a nut again, so crazy I pictured our seatbeltless carcasses flying through the windshield. She had her elbow out the window, resting on the ledge, and her other hand off the steering wheel—completely off the steering wheel!—digging into the seat for one of her cigarettes. “Crap.” Her fingers couldn’t find one.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“My emerald bracelet slipped off my wrist—what do you think?” She shoved her hand in her broken-down pocketbook and slid it all around.

“The one Prince Charming bought me.” We almost hit a tree.

I said, “I wish you would drive like a normal person for once.”

“I have no idea what to do with you, Andy. Honestly? I’m shocked. Oh look. My mahjong card. I’ve been looking for that for weeks. I never had any faults when I was your age. I was always tops in my class.”

I said, “What do you mean? I got an excellent report card, except for the. Well. Put your hands on the wheel!”

“That’s not the point, honey. Do you even know what deportment means?”

“I am not a dope.”

“Of course you’re not. You’re my son.”

“Being your son has nothing to do with it, Jesus. Why do you always say things like that?”

“There! See? That’s your F in deportment talking.”

She had no good reason to be snappy with me. It’s not like my teacher gave me F’s in every subject. Maybe it was just fun for her to put me down.

Her very own child.

“I got A’s in everything else,” I said.

She continued to hunt for a cigarette. “Immaterial, buster.” Her bag was as orange as a candy-corn pumpkin. “An F is an F. You’re always yakking it up in class and you’re a know-it-all on top of it. Now where are those—here they are—oop, goddamn it!”

“What about you?” I said. “You’d never get an A in deportment, I’m sure of it. Not in any school in the country.”

It was clear she wasn’t listening, but really she was terrible. Always so impatient and ready to holler. No faults when she was my age, right.

We almost whammed a pickup truck.

My hand grabbed the dashboard but there was nothing to grab onto. I said, “Why aren’t you looking? Step on the brake!” I imagined the worst.

Slam, splat, ambulance, funeral. I didn’t want to die.

Her fingers found a cigarette. “Ah.” She stuck it in her mouth and jabbed at the lighter. “I mean, I wasn’t a perfect angel. I once read Shakespeare with a ‘lithp.’ In front of the whole thophomore clath.” Oh boy. Here it came. She’d told me this story a hundred million times already. “Friendth, Romanth, countrymen. Lend me your eerth.” She laughed too long. “Ha-ha-ha-ha!” It wasn’t that funny.

What if she crashed for real one day when I wasn’t around? What if it was her own stupid head that went flying through the windshield? Just think of the attention I’d get. All the grownups concerned for my future and happiness. Poor orphan. What a darling. Let’s adopt him. Yes, let’s. But she wasn’t that bad, come on now, was she? She could crack you up singing silly songs like “Mairzy Doats” and “Your Feet’s Too Big.” She loved the messy paintings at the modern museum and the black-and-white photos of greasy-haired teens in Washington Square who looked like they could rob you. She liked those record-your-own-voice booths and artichokes with ketchup-and-mayonnaise and “Doctor Zhivago” (the movie) and “Another Country” (the book) by that writer with the bulging eyes, and the smell when you walked into Ohrbach’s department store. Plus everyone got along with her. At temple and in the neighborhood. Well, just about everyone. And how would we survive if she died in an accident anyway?

Vroom.

Screech.

Whizz.

Woosh.

About the Author

I was raised in the low-rent reaches of New Jersey,16 minutes from Times Square. I’ve lived in Manhattan for fifty years. I’ve had stories and poems in American Poetry Review, Best New Poets 2012, Columbia Review, Salamander, upstreet and tons of others. I’m a retired Google technical writer and teacher of Deaf young people. I have a B.A. from Columbia (no honors). Both my first book of poems, “It Wasn’t Easy to Reach You,” from Trail to Table, and my first novel, “Rabbis of the Garden State,” from Rattling Good Yarns, will be published in 2025. My longtime partner Mike Rendino is an award-winning playwright.

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