No Lifeguard on Duty

In the summer of 1970, racial unrest in Asbury Park sends three teenage friends into turmoil.

2024 Bill Fisher Award for Best First Book in Fiction (Independent Book Publishers Association)

It's July of 1970. The decaying beach town of Asbury Park, New Jersey erupts with racial unrest that propels three unlikely teenage friends into turmoil. Adam, Mollie, and Howard struggle with family conflicts and their racial, cultural and class identities in the midst of the chaos. Town and teens will never be the same.

When the smoke clears, secrets that brought the trio to this fateful time and place are revealed and continue to intertwine their lives in the years to come. The boardwalk and beaches become the setting for personal revelations, encounters with the dark side of human nature, and brushes with the supernatural.

No Lifeguard on Duty will stir a range of emotions and its nuanced treatment of race and class is as relevant today as it was in 1970.