Sea Beach Line

Ben Nadler is the author of the novel Harvitz, As to War (Iron Diesel Press) and several chapbooks, including Punk in NYC's Lower East Side, 1981-1991 (Microcosm Publishing) and The Men Who Work Under the Ground (Keep This Bag Away From Children Press). A poetry and comic collaboration chapbook is forthcoming with the visual artist Alyssa Berg. Nadler earned a BA from Eugene Lang College of the New School and an MFA from the City College of New York/CUNY. He has taught at City College, Eugene Lang College, and The College of New Rochelle-School of New Resources in the South Bronx. A former Manhattan street vendor, he has also worked in bookstores across New York, Chicago, and the San Francisco Bay Area. He lives in Brooklyn.

Praise for The Sea Beach Line: "Nadler has crafted a New York hustler coming-of-age tale in which his protagonist's life mirrors that of a yeshiva student, then the hero of a pulp novel about the Mafia, and finally the biblical patriarch Isaac. The interweaving of Izzy's search with Hasidic tales and the realities of life on the streets results in a mesmerizing narrative that will speak to any readers who have tried to make sense of their parents' lives or the secrets that people keep." -- Library Journal (starred review) "The confluence of a byzantine plot, intriguing references to Jewish folktales and the Talmud, and an epic storm results in an updated noir providing a glimpse of the Brooklyn and downtown Manhattan hidden from tourists and hipsters alike." -- Kirkus Reviews "Nadler has the courage to explore worlds--both spiritual and gritty--that are not usually the stuff of mainstream fiction, especially not combined. Mystical and folk stories are sprinkled throughout, including a retelling of the book of Esther. Best of all are the sympathetic, Steinbeck-like portraits of the lives of street people whom most of us ignore." -- New York Journal of Books "The Sea Beach Line explores themes of self-reliance, solitude, loyalty, and the stories people weave to diffuse pain. With its colorful immersion into the mind of an unstable narrator, the work speaks to the powerful tide of memory." -- Foreword Reviews "New York City pulsates with the accidental lives of seers and thugs, mystics and con artists, false prophets, lovers, and sidewalk heroes in The Sea Beach Line, a one-way ticket into the subterranean life of the city and what lies beyond it." -- Salar Abdoh, author of Tehran at Twilight and editor of Tehran Noir "With echoes of Paul Auster's Leviathan, Ben Nadler's The Sea Beach Line is a hypnotic mosaic of stories within stories whose layers piece together a fascinating mystery of a young man's search for his father. Isaac's story is as philosophical as the oldest question: Who am I, and why am I here? In Nadler's hands, this question rings ever more essential." -- Brendan Kiely, author of The Gospel of Winter "The Sea Beach Line is a thriller, and a very good one. Beyond that, it's a thriller informed by the lore of Jewish mysticism, with its sacred texts and burning words and true and false messiahs, and by themes of paternity and patrimony: what it is our fathers leave us, even the fathers we never knew. It gripped me by the throat and wouldn't let go." -- Peter Trachtenberg, author of Another Insane Devotion Foreword Reviews' 2015 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards Bronze winner. Included on Book Riot's list of "100 Must-Read Works of Jewish Fiction." Praise for Harvitz, As to War: "[F]rom a Vietnam vet's weed farm in California to a gated community in Florida, from Coney Island to Williamsburg - As To War enticingly intimates Nadler's great fund of erudition, shrewdness, and brutality." - You're Beautiful, New York