Train to Pokipse 2016

"TRAIN TO POKIPSE is a Catcher in the Rye for the new century, and Rami Shamir is an authentic literary voice for a new lost generation." -Barney Rosset, founder of Grove Press and legendary publisher of Henry Miller, William S. Burroughs, and Samuel Beckett

A portrait of a millennial young man in the pre-Occupy Wall Street America of bank bailouts and apathy. Marinated in cocaine and sexual failure, awkward, painful, with occasional moments of high comedic relief, TRAIN TO POKIPSE has proven itself to be frighteningly accurate in its socio-political predictions. During this election year mad-house, it's easy to find yourself wondering how we fell this far. TRAIN TO POKIPSE, written beautifully and structured in an intricate metaphor, captures the moment in time when the wheels started falling off the American dream.

Following a nameless twenty-something protagonist as he travels through New York City's subway on the morning of February 17, 2008-exactly one month before the crash of Lehman Brothers and the start of the 2008 bank failure-we're exposed to unfiltered flashbacks of this millennial's short life. As he reminiscences about his time as an underprivileged scholarship student at New York's illustrious (and expensive) Bard College and his post-graduate days in New York's drug-fueled and sexed out nightlife scene, we learn that his seemingly wayward morning subway ride has a destination-and a purpose. He's bound to New York's Grand Central Station, looking to catch the train to Poughkeepsie, New York, where rumor has it that the love of his life is currently living. His mission: to repair the great heartbreak of that first love. When it turns out that he's missed the train to Poughkeepsie, the impossibility of the venture hits him with the impact of an oncoming train. What happens next is guaranteed to leave you shocked!