Suc­cess eludes Matt Glass­man. Every­thing he tries to accom­plish brings him to the brink of attain­ment, only to see his efforts fail. Such things shouldn’t be hap­pen­ing to a nice Jew­ish boy just out of grad­u­ate school and try­ing to be an adult and a men­sch. Liv­ing among his fam­i­ly and their friends in ​“Ropa Gatos,” a sus­pi­cious­ly famil­iar-sound­ing south Flori­da com­mu­ni­ty, Matt can’t seem to get a grip on his life. 

Will he suc­cumb to the depres­sion that threat­ens to engulf him? Will their earnest efforts result in the preg­nan­cy that he and his wife are seek­ing? Will he be able to hold on to his new job? Will he find the grand­fa­ther whose sud­den dis­ap­pear­ance years ago pro­vides both moti­va­tion and mys­tery in this lov­ing depic­tion of the life and times of a typ­i­cal Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty in south­ern Flori­da? The first-per­son nar­ra­tive suc­ceeds in sug­gest­ing that this new young author is telling his own story.