Breakfast with the Ones You Love Book

Meet Lea Tillim, aka Cadaver Dimples, Star of Morgues and Emergency Rooms. Scarecrow thin, with a sharp crew cut and a dead face, Lea’s a girl with a talent. She can think you into a heart attack if you cross her–or, if she’s feeling kind, just a bad case of indigestion. She has only one friend in the world, her cat, Tule. You see, a girl like Lea can’t be too careful whom she shows her talent to. In her experience it only leads to troubles and tragedies.

Now it’s led her to Jack Konar, who’s secretly building something strange and wonderful in an abandoned section of the local Sears and Roebuck. According to Jack, it’s all part of a master plan to rescue the Chosen from this godforsaken planet. But the agents of the Evil Ones–cleverly disguised as ordinary people and sometimes even cats–are trying to stop him. Jack needs a girl with Lea’s special talents. It would all sound just too crazy for words if the most dangerous and unexpected thing of all hadn’t happened. After years of the best poker face grief could buy, Lea finds herself slowly coming back to life . . . and falling in love with the savior of the world.

Publishers Weekly

The standup comedy of Fintushel's stage work echoes through his debut novel, a highly original, seriously skewed take on kabbalistic lore, like a shofar on Yom Kippur. Lea Tillim, a 16-year-old runaway, has a psychic "talent" that allows her to kill anyone who gets in her way. She begins to blossom after she rescues Jack "the Yid" Konar, a smalltime drug dealer who also happens to be "the Chosen of the Chosen of the Chosen." The Yid has constructed a mystical spaceship-complete with a Fleshpot and the Holy of Holies-to transport the select few to the true Ish-ra-el. As Lea aids Jack on his quest, she gets stoned, receives epiphanies, is chased by the mob, is befriended by an adorably whiny minyan, helps foil the Evil One and his marquetry ladies and teams with an unlikely multitude from various religious persuasions. Though Lea's voice wanders from infatuated teen to world-weary kvetch, this uneven coming-of-age story is a virtual cornucopia of strange delights. (Mar.)