Bad Questions

FUNNY AND DEEPLY MOVING -- Corey Flintoff former foreign correspondent, National Public Radio

In Len Kruger's debut novel, Bad Questions, winner of the 2023 Washington Writers' Publishing House Fiction Award, narrator Billy Blumberg asks lots of questions. Some of them are about the more-or-less-mundane matters of adolescence, and others are far more profound. How do we find forgiveness? How can we know what's in the troubled hearts of others?-- --Washington Independent Review of Books

Humorous and heartbreaking, Bad Questions is a coming-of-age journey toward redemption and self-awareness, skirting the lines between spirituality, skepticism, and faith-and asking the big questions. From the light of the memorial candle back to 1971 in suburban Washington DC, Bad Questions is the story of Billy Blumberg, who carries guilt over the recent death of his father, a Hebrew school principal. After Billy and his mother move across Montgomery County in suburban Maryland, he encounters Ms. Marvin, a former teacher notorious for her macabre eccentricity. A seance in her apartment veers out of control, leading to a deadly "hex list" and Billy's discovery of his father's fatal secret. The winner of the 2023 Washington Writers' Publishing House Fiction Award. Bad Questions is Len Kruger's debut novel.