The Human Bobby »

Gabe Rotter graduated from film school in 2000 and has spent the last six years trying to free himself from indentured servitude in Hollywood. A native of New York, he currently resides in Los Angeles. Duck Duck Wally is his first novel.

THE GRIPPING STORY OF THE UNRAVELING OF ONE MAN’S SEEMINGLY PERFECT LIFE, AND HIS STRUGGLE TO GET EVERYTHING BACK.

A new baby, a loving wife, a solid career, a dream house in Beverly Hills: Dr. Bobby Flopkowski has it all. Until a complicated series of events snowball into a disaster that changes the course of his life forever.

Now, with a tent on the beach as his only home and an addiction that has cut him off from everyone he once loved, Bobby has a revelation that could put him back on track: he believes he has solved the puzzling crime that led to his downfall. But as the reality he’s always known slips farther away, will he be able to convince someone—anyone—that his suspicions aren’t merely the pleas of a desperate man?

Publishers Weekly

When we meet Bobby Flopkowski, the homeless hero of Rotter's middling second novel (after Duck Duck Wally), he and his sidekick, Eddie, are living in a tent on a California beach, but not long ago, Bobby was a happily married doctor and father living in Beverly Hills. That all changed after Katie Turner, Bobby's childhood neighbor and girlfriend, shows up in L.A. after a run of hard luck. When Bobby invites Katie to stay with him and his wife, Ava, until she gets on her feet, Ava is predictably peeved. But that's nothing compared to what happens one night when Katie kisses Bobby and, in the ensuing confusion, somehow Jack, Bobby and Ava's baby, goes missing. It's a long way down for Bobby as Ava leaves him, he loses his job, and eventually ends up on the beach with Eddie. Unfortunately, the entertaining if occasionally bumpy story falls apart when Bobby discovers that Katie might have had more to do with Jack's disappearance than he'd thought, and the action devolves into a swirl of increasingly unlikely turns more at home on daytime TV than on the page. (Aug.)