72-Year-Old Brooklynite Releases Debut Novel to Rave Reviews

Brooklynite Michael Gross's rollicking debut novel, Spillage, a fantastical love story featuring rookie pitching phenom and would-be NY-savior Nick "The Swan" Spillage, launches today as the real-life Yankees begin their 2024 baseball season.

Spillage is a wild play on the Faustian musical Damn Yankees, a rock and roll romance and a wickedly comic throwback to the chaos of New York City’s darkest days. The novel has won early critical acclaim with reviewers praising its originality, authenticity, charm, humor, prose style, characters, and plot.

● "Wildly creative... Gross provides such a juicy, unusual plot that readers will be riveted." - Kirkus Reviews

● "A raucous rendition of '70s New York... intriguing and unique... unforgettable." - Independent Book Review

● "An infectiously entertaining comic novel, charming and delightfully confusing." - Indie Reader "IR Approved"

● "A must-read for anyone seeking an immersive literary experience rooted in the heart of one of America's most iconic cities." - BookView Review "Five Stars"

Set in 1976, the novel takes place when the Big Apple is in sorry shape. Besieged on all sides, the city has become a graffiti-coated, garbage-filled, crime-ridden cauldron teetering on the edge of total collapse. Adding to New York’s towering woes, a revolutionary group called the Satanic Vanguard has kidnapped the mayor, set fire to Coney Island, and threatened further mayhem. All that Gotham has to hope for are its resurgent Yankees, who’ve come back from the dead to reach the World Series by riding the arm of their rookie pitching phenom Nick Spillage.

The novel is nearly 50 years in the making. Seventy-two-year-old debut novelist Gross began writing Spillage the year the story takes place and returned to the manuscript decades later with more mature eyes after a successful career as CEO of a leading strategic communications firm.

Spillage is now available for purchase at Amazon. For more information about the story and author, please visit SpillageBook.com.