Jonathan Blum's Last Word was published by Rescue Press, an imprint devoted to finding and saving overlooked books. The novella is an odd comedy, set in a private Jewish middle school, that examines a fraught father-son relationship and the retaliation, suffering, and aggression inherent in adolescence. Blum talks about the experience of publishing his first book, and the riddle of a moral contained in its inscrutable 13-year-old antihero, a Bartlebian computer whiz with a vengeful streak.
Read an excerpt from Last Word.