Sometimes, the unlikeliest friendship is the one that changes everything.

Nixon Bliss thought I couldn’t speak without borrowed words, that my useless legs dangled because I was made of wood. It makes sense to me now, the way his eyes fixed on me when my father lifted me out of the car, eyes that couldn’t believe what they were seeing, an illusion as if a magician had pulled a Jew out of a hat instead of a rabbit. I had no idea Nixon wanted to be a ventriloquist, or that I was the spitting image of Jerry Mahoney, or that Jerry Mahoney was Nixon’s hero. My name is Isaac Harpey Mendelson, and I am a real boy.

Yes, Isaac Harpey Mendelson was indeed a real boy. Along with his best friend, Nixon Bliss, and a cast of childhood friends, they play in their New Jersey cul-de-sac at a time when life was much simpler. Yet beneath the surface, evil reared its ugly head.

Nearly six decades later, Nixon is now a recent widower and pastors a local church in the same neighborhood. During his summer sermon, he retells the story to his congregation of that iconic time and how it changed their lives.

Told with humor, compassion, and sentimentality, the chapters alternate between past and present. The engaging yet down-to-earth story of Harpey Mendelson will captivate you from the very first sentence.