“At a time when a host of economic and social ills is causing many of us to contemplate a world beyond materialism and narcissism, Poor Richard’s Lament juices up the process with an ever-building sense of moral urgency.”

—from the Foreword by Michael Zuckerman

rom the West Wing of the White House to the “Celestial Trial” of Ben Franklin, to the slums of Philadelphia, Poor Richard’s Lament takes us on a whirlwind tour of time and space.

Benjamin Franklin has been confined to a private apartment in the Plantation of the Unconfessed for the past two-plus centuries, when he receives notice that his petition for final processing has finally been approved. In the company of two Intermediaries, Ben appears before a panel of Examiners in the Celestial Court of Petitions to make his case. His Examiners, disconcertingly, are three former arch adversaries: John Adams, Alexander Wedderburn, and the Reverend William Smith.

By the end of Ben’s turbulent examination, in which his sins (or, as he calls them, ‘errata’) are brought devastatingly into focus, Ben fully expects to be cast into the abyss. Instead, he’s invited to bear witness to what has become of America in the two-plus centuries of his absence.

Ben’s odyssey begins at his birth site in Boston, passes through New York (where Ben upstages a leadership conference at the Waldorf Astoria), and ends, with wrenching poignancy, at his grave site in Philadelphia.

Interwoven into the main story is a second, beginning in the red-carpeted parlors of the West Wing and ending in the blood-stained streets of West Philadelphia. Eventually, the parallel stories collide, like massive tectonic plates, in a stunning series of shocks and aftershocks.

Following in the traditions of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, with intimations of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Poor Richard’s Lament, nine years in the making, is an intricately woven, ultimately uplifting tale of revelation and redemption.

Book Excerpts »

Publisher’s Note »