Lay of Hildebrandt

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A missing father, an unknown daughter, a puzzling manuscript—

Tom never knew his dad, who was taken prisoner in the Korean War. Or maybe he abandoned the family. Or maybe Tom’s mother threw him out. A professor of comp lit, Tom sees his story mirrored in “The Lay of Hiltibrant,” a medieval poem in which a father and son face off in battle. Their failure to recognize each other threatens tragic consequences. But the poem is a fragment with no ending. Does the father kill his son, or vice-versa? As Tom ponders his father’s fateful return, his daughter Mara, the product of a long-ago fling with a student, sits incognito in his classroom. Smart and attractive, bitter yet curious about her own absent father, Mara disrupts Tom’s life, leading him to jeopardize his career.

LAY of HILDEBRANDT is a literary thriller, a satire of academia and a labyrinth of dark family secrets. The book takes its title and is a modern retelling of the oldest poem in the German language. 

Currently querying agents and publishers.