Eddie and Bella: A Novel

Back in the seventies when everything was going Raphael's way and he was at his peak, he met Bella, the first woman who saw right through him. She was the first one to figure that he wasn't really from California, but New Jersey. She caught on to his pseudopoet persona and all the bad poetry that went with it. And she was the only one to stop Raphael -- the irresistible, head-turning, woman-winning, seductive Raphael (born Eddie Hoffa) -- in his tracks. So when he ruins it with Bella by falling for the next sweet thing that crosses his path, he tells everyone that Bella died.

But then years later, at forty, Bella's nowhere near dead. She still steals he scene when she walks through a room, still gets drinks sent to her at bars, still makes the most rational of men behave irrationally. "Eddie And Bella" follows Eddie and Bella's odd, fateful path back toward one another while they hold out for something as genuine as the incandescence they've lost. And, along the way, we meet the unlikeliest cast of characters -- a pitifully obese country singer, a New Orleans street thug, a lovesick corporate drone, and Bella's insolent, yet loyal daughters -- who somehow manage to bring these two together. Funny, sensitive, and true to life, "Eddie And Bella" a is a story of lost -- and found -- love among the ruins.