Inflating a Dog

Peter Leroy

Peter Leroy struggles to win the affections of the toothsome Patti Fiorenza while keeping his mother’s hopes and his mother’s boat afloat.

Ella Leroy dreams of escaping the dreary routine of her 1950s wife-and-mom life. Without telling her husband, she enlists her son Peter and his locally-notorious girlfriend Patti in a scheme to buy a run-down clamboat and re-invent it as an elegant cruising vessel for summer people in the bayside town of Babbington, Long Island.  But after they’ve bought the boat, Peter discovers that it is slowly sinking.

“[A] bittersweet tale of adolescence recollected in tranquility. . . . Glorious stuff.”
     Kirkus Reviews

“Raucous, wise, and great fun, this is simply not to be missed.”
     Nancy Pearl, Booklist

“The reader feels flattered and privileged to be invited to join Kraft’s remarkable, ongoing dance of time and memory.”
     Richard Gehr, Newsday

“A hilarious riff on Don Quixote, on the desire for fame, the need for success, the power of fantasy.”
     Barbara Fisher, Boston Globe

“Provocative, poignant and deeply satisfying . . . especially in lyrical passages that epitomize the secret dreams and yearnings of a soul in the making, a fool for beauty.”
     Frederic Koeppel, Memphis Commercial Appeal

“Fascinating and sophisticated.”
     Jennifer Reese, The New York Times Book Review

“The best description of sex appeal anywhere, ever.”
     Peter Jon Shuler