Submission Synopsis

Ghosts at the Round Table: A Telling Alliance
Sacco and Vanzetti at the Gonk

by D. J. Herda

Length:

Anticipated at 80,000 - 90,000

Genre:

Narrative Nonfiction

Literary Historical Fiction

Book in One Sentence:
As New York's Algonquin Round Tablers evolve into America's Unholy Alliance, one of its brightest and most determined stars picks up the gauntlet for truth, justice, and a new American Way of Life.

Blurb/Logline:
Dorothy Parker is the most unlikely of radicals.  But the author who pens "Men seldom make passes / at girls who wear glasses" has much more on her mind than clever witticisms when she lobbies fellow Round Tablers to the defense of accused killers Sacco and Vanzetti.  For more than six years, she carries the banner against America's paranoia and disgrace.  In the end, it is Parker--and not two Italian-born anarchist immigrants--who pays the greatest price of all for her integrity.

Synopsis:

On April 15, 1920, Frederick Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli are shot dead in South Braintree while carrying two boxes containing the payroll of a shoe factory.  After two robbers take the $15,000 in cash, they get into a car containing several other men and speed away.  Two Italian immigrant anarchists--Bartolomeo Vanzetti and Nicola Sacco--are charged, prosecuted, and convicted of murder. 

As the two sit in prison awaiting their deaths by electrocution, writer Dorothy Parker is bothered.  She has found too many holes in the prosecution's case and too many problems with the convicting judge to sit idly by.  As she rallies the civilized world to the Italians' cause, Representative Joseph McCarthy and the House on Unamerican Activities Committee work silently behind the scenes to disgrace Parker and strip her of her constitutional rights.

Parker and fellow Algonquin Round Tablers fight back.  But is it too little too late?

Author Bio:

D. J. Herda is author of more than 80 conventionally published books, several hundred thousand columns and short pieces, and numerous plays, scripts, and articles.  He is president of the American Society of Authors and Writers, a member of The Author’s Guild, and a former member of numerous literary and media organizations.

NOTE: All material is copyright protected.  No portion of this material may be copied or reproduced, either electronically,  mechanically, or by any other means, for resale or distribution without the written consent of the author.  All copy has been dated and registered with the American Society of Authors and Writers.  Copyright 2009 by The Swetky Agency