Here's a description of the story:

"Blessed with uncanny deductive skills and a blasé disregard for authority, Matt Bolster was a rising LAPD homicide detective by the age of thirty-five. He was also overworked, divorced, near-alcoholic, and miserable. Then, to impress a girl, he agreed to try yoga. And with a single savasana, everything changed.

Now Bolster has traded his badge and gun for a scraggly beard and the life of an itinerant yoga teacher, dabbling in P.I. work to make rent. He mostly handles missing-persons cases, credit-card fraud - nothing too messy. But that’s before Ajoy Chaterjee, the billionaire founder of one of the world’s leading yoga-business empires, is found murdered inside his West L.A. flagship studio. Bolster knows the LAPD doesn’t have a prayer of cracking the secrets of the yoga world. But he does, and he really needs the dough.

Of course, sticking to the principles of the yamas and niyamas during a murder investigation isn’t easy, especially with so many hot women among the suspects. But personal ethics will be the least of Bolster’s problems if the killer finds him first."

Again, one dollar and ninety-nine cents. For that price, why not buy one now?

In other news, my gripping historical thriller Jewball is going to be released in paperback, at last, later this month. Here's an image of the cover.

Exciting times here at the Pollack Fiction Ranch! Glad to have you along.

“I don’t care what some people think,” I said.

And I still don’t.

The title Jewball represents a point of pride for me. The book is about Jewish basketball players in the 1930s, a time when global anti-Semitism was nearing its peak. In the U.S., though, Jews had started to move out of the immigrant ghetto and into the mainstream. They were getting educated. They were getting powerful. And they dominated professional basketball.

Old-school Jewish basketball didn’t much resemble what we see today. They played below the rim. They jumped ball after every made basket. Well into that decade, they had to play in cages because bigots in the crowd would throw broken bottles at them. It was a gritty fight in front of a tough crowd. And the guys who played it called it Jewball, without hesitation or neurosis.

So in calling my novel Jewball, I’m honoring the memory and achievements of players like Inky Lautman, Harry Litwack, Gil Fitch, and Shikey Gothofer, many of whom have been forgotten by history. I want to reclaim their legacy and their unmatchable contribution to the world’s greatest game. People should know that Jewish men played the game hard and played it well.

When I search for the word “Jewball” on Twitter, I don’t see ethnic slurs. Instead, I see references to Jewish Community Center rec leagues in cities like Cleveland and Durham, where young Jewish guys—the spiritual and ethnic heirs to the characters I wrote about—are excited for their Tuesday-night run down the court. “Jewball is gonna be epic,” they say. It will be, because it always has been.

When it came time for Thomas & Mercer to fully unleash Jewball on the world, some people in the company were understandably nervous. They wanted me to come up with an alternate title because, like my parents, they were worried that some people might be offended. I thought of Inky’s Game—referring to the main character, Inky Lautman—but that fell kind of flat. The editors liked Inglorious Baskets, because the central team in the book spends a lot of time fighting homegrown American Nazis. It seemed like a funny idea, but after a couple of days it also started to seem derivative.

Finally, I got an email from Thomas & Mercer saying they had decided to keep Jewball as the title. They might even have called it genius.

To the book’s genius, I cannot speak. But I do know it’s full of action and romance and fun, and there’s lots and lots of basketball. Plus it’s got that awesome title.

Since I released it on the Kindle in October (and then in a Create Space paperback in November), Jewball has sold about 500 copies worldwide. In a social-media environment where one can reach millions, or even billions, of people, I realize that's not a lot. But since I started from zero, and had no resources other than my 2000-plus Facebook friends and Twitter followers, it still feels like an accomplishment. I put out a book of quality on my own terms, and I did it quickly. The gatekeepers then saw it and deemed it worthy. Now Amazon is going to work its data-mining magic and, hopefully, get Jewball into the thousands upon thousands of e-reading devices where it deserves to live.

A couple of weeks ago, I got a check from my agent for more than a thousand dollars. These were my first Jewball royalties. Money in the low four digits, while no fortune, is nothing to disdain. I paid some bills that otherwise would have been hard to handle. Here's to being able to pay some more bills, and to several Jewball sequels to come. Thank you all for your support.

An interview with Forbes.com.

And more to come!

If I may offer my biased opinion, I really think you should buy a copy. Not because it's the culmination of my dreams, or because it's the book I always wanted to write, though both those things are true. Lots of people dream of writing a book, many people do, and often those books aren't very good. While I can't say for certainty that Jewball is very good--I can't be objective on that score--I do know that it's a funny, breezy, exciting read, and that it absolutely stacks up with books put out by conventional publishing entities. I worked with great editors and a fantastic cover designer and made sure that Jewball reads and feels like something put out by a professional. There's pride and love on every page, and I hope you all can sense that.

If you'd download a copy, I'd be extremely grateful. If you'd tweet and Facebook about it, I'd be even more grateful. This isn't a book that's going to move via traditional channels. Its success won't and can't be easily quantified. But if the Internet does what it does best--spread the word about things that are awesome--then Jewball stands a chance in the glutted digital marketplace.

So enjoy the book, and, if you feel like it, help a brother out. Thanks so much. See you on the court, and hopefully not in court.

NP

I will make robotic snakes that have fake electronic poison that deactivates your armor. I will have dragons that’s breath deactivates your armor. Then they pick you up in their mouth and then they swallow you. Then you just land in a place with toys, books, TV, video games and snacks and stuff like that.

There will be one haunted house. And that haunted house will have a room with a robotic skeleton that sits in a chair rocking back and forth. The skeleton has a holographic knife and gets up, walks toward you, and then it slices your armor and your armor gets a fake crack in it and your armor is gone. It will make it unable to use for the rest of the round.

You will be able to outnumber your opponent and capture them. There’s going to be as many floors as I can afford. On the top floor, whatever it is, a lot of it is going to be some space thing with aliens that have weapons that do insane damage to your armor. There are holographic UFOs on the roof. They blast at you, obviously.

There will be giant birds that will swoop down, grab you, put you in their nest, and then if they like you they will let you go, and if they don’t, they eat you, take you to an area, and you’re kicked out of the game.

I hope you like my laser tag story.

Here's a profile of me from The Jewish Daily Forward, which made my mother kvell.

Here's an in-depth interview with Propeller Magazine, which made my mother say, "So what is this Propeller Magazine?"

And to round out the picture, here's a piece of Slate about the "rise of the yoga memoir." It rose a year ago, people!

In any case, I'm staying in a far corner of the public eye. That self-published novel about Jewish basketball players in the 1930s is gonna be my ticket!

JEWBALL
A Novel By Neal Pollack

From the bestselling satirist and memoirist Neal Pollack comes a funny, gritty noir portrait of a people on the brink and of a great American game just coming into its own.

1937. As the world prepares for war and the Jews of Europe feel the tightening noose of Nazi oppression, tensions simmer in America. While thousands of homegrown Nazis gather in groups like the German-American Bund, American Jews organize against this scourge, resisting any way they can. Meanwhile, the game of basketball grows in popularity, and Jews rule the court. In Philadelphia, the greatest Jewish basketball team of all prepares to confront the Bund, fists cocked. Here, the Jews write the rules. This is war. This is sports. This is…Jewball.

"Yes, son?"

"I have one goal in life. Do you want to know what it is?"

"I do."

"Well, actually, I have two goals."

"OK."

"One of them is to prove to the world that the Loch Ness Monster exists. And Bigfoot. And the chupacabra. Stuff like that. Which is why I want to be a cryptozoologist. Did you know I want to be a cryptozoologist, daddy?"

"Yes, because you tell me every day."

"Oh yeah, that's right, I do. Well, anyway, my other goal is to prove to the world that aliens exist."

"OK."

"What are your goals in life, daddy?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, come on. You must have some goals."

"I want to write books."

"But you've already done that."

"Then I guess I've met my goals."

"My other goal is to have the dog fart in my mouth and then have the fart come out of my own butt."

"I hope you never achieve that goal, son."

"Me, too."

"Yes, son?"

Why is there a giant piñata of Elmo hanging next to all those flowers at that store over there?"

"Because this is a Mexican neighborhood."

"Elmo's Mexican?"

"No, piñatas are Mexican."

"Oh."

When you think of a “yogi,” my dad isn’t what comes to mind, unless you’re thinking of Yogi Bear. Like me, he has excessive body hair and a preternatural fondness for luncheon meats. Unlike me, he’s the son of immigrants who barely escaped Germany in 1934, and he served two tours of duty in Vietnam. Also, he watches Fox News at least three hours a day. But when I was in Phoenix for Thanksgiving, my dad and I went to a yoga class together.

Bernie has been taking morning yoga at his gym twice a week for two years. He considers it part of his workout routine. Sometimes he runs on the treadmill, sometimes he lifts weights, and sometimes he does yoga. “My trainer said it’d help my back,” he told me.

“But there must be all kinds of other benefits,” I said.

My dad, possessed of the least-troubled mind in all existence, said, “Eh. I just feel good when it’s done.”

Usually, when I’m in Phoenix, I take yoga classes at a studio near my parents’ house, expensive, sweaty numbers full of snotty people, pretentious flow, and overloud music of the type favored by new-money pseudo-spiritualists. The classes are at my physical level, sometimes even above. Therefore, I sweat acceptably, but I’ve never had a moment of decent conversation or authentic human connection during or after. Meanwhile, my dad goes off to yoga at the gym and arrives home calm and happy while I’m still sitting at the kitchen table in my boxers, staring glumly at my can of Diet Coke.

This time, I thought I’d try it his way. At dinner the night before, I said, “Hey, dad, will you take me to yoga tomorrow?”

He looked pleased, as though I’d asked if I could go to the office with him to see how he spent his day. But since I’d never actually asked for that, this was a fresh experience for both of us. It would be a genuine father-son outing.

“Of course,” he said.

“Do you need a mat?” I asked. “I’ve got an extra in the car.”

“I’ve got one,” he said. “I’ve got two.”

“Really?” I said, as though I couldn’t believe it. “Where did you get them?”

“They sell them at TJ Maxx,” my mom said.

The mainstreaming of yoga was complete.

My dad got to class almost 15 minutes early. Just like I do, I thought. He put down his mat near the back left corner of the room. Just like me. He motioned for me to unroll my mat to his left.

“The other side’s for Alice,” he said.

“Who’s Alice?” I asked.

“Oh, just someone who takes yoga,” he said.

Aw, how cute, I thought. My dad has a yoga friend!

As it turned out, he had several, mostly around his age. The pre-class conversation covered turkey and grandkids and college football, quite different than the conversations at my usual classes, which are usually about auditions and cats. By the time the teacher showed up, nearly 50 people had claimed their yoga acre. There are definitely some challenges to teaching classes that size, but most of the teachers I know would stand on their head for hours to get a class of four-dozen people because it would mean that they might actually be able to pay their rent through yoga.

The teacher carried a photo from the recent local Bikram-sponsored yoga championships, of which she’s an aficionado. She showed it to a few students, who murmured that they’d never be able to do the pose shown in the picture. Other than the fact that she wore pink sweatpants with the word “PURE” written across the butt in black letters, this was the only thing for which I could criticize my dad’s yoga teacher. Yoga isn’t about perfecting poses. It’s about living intelligently and kindly in the present moment. Poses, whatever the result, are just a byproduct of the effort and concentration you put into them.

But once the class started, she said pretty much the same thing, having people focus on their breath, calling yoga a “beautiful gift,” leading her mostly-late Boomer crowd through a slow, mindful flow, respectful of their needs and not condescending to them. I made a conscious effort to mind my own practice and not care about what was going on around me. At one point, though I glanced at my dad. He was rolling on his back, knees drawn into his chest, with a look of extreme pleasure on his face like a dog getting its belly rubbed.

I didn’t ever want to see that again.

The only other time I became aware of him was when the teacher called for bow pose, and dad said, “I don’t do that one.” That’s a very excusable admission for a man who’s had rotator-cuff surgery and who once broke his shoulder in a skiing accident. He doesn’t need to do bow pose.

When the teacher said namaste after a short savasana, most of the class applauded. I’ve taken yoga classes all over the world, from a great variety of master teachers. Rarely have I heard such enthusiasm. These people were never going to attend an anusara Grand Gathering or Wanderlust, buy tickets to a “trance dance,” or download an MC Yogi song. They probably didn’t know, and probably didn’t care, about the difference between Ashtanga, Iyengar, or kundalini yoga. None of them would sign up as Lululemon ambassadors. But they’d arrived that day at the gym stiff, or feeling stressed out, or bloated from Thanksgiving dinner, and now they were a little better. Yoga serves no more important purpose. The rest of what we call “yoga” in the West is often just sickly-sweet frosting atop a delicious cake that needs no extra flavor.

Then the 9:45 aerobics people came barging in, as they’re wont to do during gym yoga, and the spell broke. My dad and I drove home, sipping on our Costco-bought plastic water bottles that he keeps cold in the garage mini-fridge.

“So was that different than usual?” I asked him.

“Eh, maybe a little more rushed,” he said. “Big class because of the holidays. Good, though.”

“How was the class for you?”

“I can do some of the poses,” he said. “Some of the poses, I can’t do. It’s fine for me.”

My dad, the yogi.

One night last month I made dinner for the family. As we sat down to eat, I started picking some choice bits off Elijah's plate. He put his hand over mine.

"What are you doing, Neal?" he asked.

"Call me daddy," I said.

"What are you doing, daddy?"

"I'm eating," I said.

"Eat your own food," he said.

"I cooked this, so I can eat it," I said.

"Let him eat his food," Regina said, and I bowed to the real boss.

A minute or so passed. Elijah said:

"Sure, if you go to a restaurant, and the waiter brings the food, and..."

"I don't want to hear about any more Spongebob episodes," I said.

"No, I'm making this up," Elijah said.

"Proceed, then."

"The waiter brings the food, and he starts eating it off the table, and you complain, but he says, 'I can eat it if I want, because I cooked it.'"

My kid was giving me shit. This filled me with great pride, because he was doing it with wit, and narrative, and metaphor. That's my boy, I thought.

"Touché," I said.

"Elijah," Regina said, "that's really funny, but it would be funnier if the chef came out and ate the food."

"Right," I said. "Because the waiter doesn't actually cook the food. He only serves it."

Elijah thought for a moment, and said,

"You're right, that would be funnier."

"Thank you, mama," I said.

"Unless it was a really small restaurant," said the boy.

The book got folded into a somewhat spurious "hipster parenting" meme, and I soon became a spokesperson for one of last decade's most dubious cultural phenomena. I found myself defending things totally outside my experience, like parents who take their babies into Brooklyn bars or buy them $75 designer rock-band T-shirts, and got placed in the cross-hairs of an odd blog rage at the kinds of parents who want to create four-year-old "foodies." Then the haters moved on, finding new things to hate, and I moved on as well, finding new things to whine about.

Now, thanks to Toyota, I can safely declare the era of hipster parenting dead.

By this point, you've probably all seen the ads with that towheaded child-monster who declares, "just because you're a parent, doesn't mean you have to be lame." The solution to that lameness? Buying a Toyota Highlander!

There are several ads, each one more obnoxious than the next: The kid goes through his parents' house, throwing out all their "lame" cultural possessions, including a surprising number of velvet clown paintings; he berates his dad for washing a wood-paneled minivan in the driveway; apparently, his parents catch on, and he suddenly becomes a child of privilege who watches his in-seat Highlander DVD player while his friend is trapped in a sedan listening to his folks sing "Angel Of The Morning" over and over again. Another ad, even more offensively, features the kid snarking lispily, tossing his "cool" backpack into his "cool" car, while another kid cowers in embarrassment as his dad implores him to get into the station wagon.

The first time I saw one of these, I had a very primal thought: I want to strangle that little fucker. But I shouldn't blame him. I should blame the people that green-lit his lines. If Toyota is trying to penetrate the psychology of the contemporary parent, it's way off.

If Toyota wants to sell family cars to the generation that created No Logo and "I am not a target market", they should be promoting the idea that being a family person is cool in and of itself, and that certain cars help create a feeling of family togetherness. The key psychological point to hit is this: We're worried that being parents will strip us of our pre-parenthood identities. No one seriously believes that owning a particular product, except for possibly the new MacBook Air, will make them seem hip. We need confirmation that our decision to have a family was the right one.

You could go one of two directions. The first would appeal to our seeming genetically-inbred sense of irony. We respond well to mockery. Rather than partaking in cultural clichés that were hoary before Eight Is Enough went off the air, flip the script. Make the parents overly concerned with being hip and cool, and make the kids decidedly unhip. Rocker dad driving the SUV with square-looking kids in the back is a lot funnier than a sweater-wearing dweeb driving around a bunch of kids with expensive haircuts.

Alternately, be sincere, or at least quasi-sincere. Show a scene of the family rocking out together, or enjoying a meal. Give a sense of a happy, together family, not a sense of a "lame" middle-aged person patting an entitled brat on the head after that brat precociously congratulates them for spending $30,000 on an SUV. That's exactly what we don't want to see. We all consider ourselves middle-class people just trying to get by, and we don't need to be made to feel bad because of our lack of purchasing power.

One of those ads came on during Monday Night Football recently, while Elijah (who looks, somewhat disturbingly, like the kid in the ad, only cuter) was in the room with me. Without prompting, he said,

"Why would a parent be lame if they didn't buy a car?"

"Good point, son," i said.

"I mean, I like nice cars, but it doesn't make you cool if you have one."

"Very true."

"I think that commercial is lame," he said.

"Me, too," I said, and then I asked, "Do you think mommy and I are cool?"

Keep in mind that I requested this opinion from a child who sits in bed at night speaking parseltongue to rubber snakes, and whose major hobby is collecting Pokemon cards. He's hardly a coolhunter's dream find. But I couldn't help myself. Those damn commercials make me feel insecure.

Elijah rolled his eyes.

"You guys are fine." he said.

This, I took as the final word, that I was neither cool or lame, alternative or mainstream, taking my baby into bars or singing Angel Of The Morning in traffic. I was fine. And that was just fine with me.