Book Alert: Steven Charnow's "Charlie Fig and the Lip"

Steven Charnow's Charlie Fig and the Lip, a coming-of-age novel following the turbulent events between Aaron Lipstein and Charlie Figatelli.  This marks Steven Charnow's debut release.

Aaron Lipstein, “the Lip” to his best friend Charlie Figatelli, (“because you got an answer for everything”), is about to graduate high school at the top of his class.  Aaron is looking forward to an uneventful summer before leaving home for college and getting away from his abusive father.   When the bullet-riddled, delivery van belonging to Charlie’s father is pulled from a canal flowing into Jamaica Bay, and the police fail to recover Mr. Figatelli’s body, Charlie appeals to Aaron to help him search for it.

Steven Charnow grew up in New York City, including some memorable years in Brooklyn.  After graduating from Queens College, he worked as a social worker for the NYC Bureau of Child Welfare, and then joined the Peace Corps, serving two years in Medellin, Colombia.  Returning to the United States, he settled in Los Angeles, where he collaborated with a composer and wrote song lyrics in English and Spanish.  He moved on to writing screenplays and was soon under contract to a film studio producing low-budget features.  His first novel, “Charlie Fig and the Lip,” was inspired by his childhood explorations along the marsh shallows of New York City’s Jamaica Bay.  When he isn’t running marathons to maintain his sanity, he is writing his next novel.  He lives in Santa Monica, California with his wife, Shelley, and his dog, Luke.

More information about Charnow can be found on his website: http://www.stevencharnow.com/

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