Roommates

From Max Apple, the witty and acclaimed writer of The Oranging of America and Free Agents, comes a true story unlike any you've ever read before. At its center is a young boy who grows into a man and his grandfather - irascible, scrappy Herman "Rocky" Goodstein - who takes over a troubled family at the age of 103 and shows them all how to survive, how to heal, and how to love. Rocky seems to have been looking out for his grandson Max all his life. A Jewish immigrant from Lithuania, the five-feet-tall, 110 pound Rocky ends up as a baker in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and has already been forced into semiretirement by the time Max is born. He is, however, no gentle old man. He argues with the men in the synagogue, screams daily at his fellow workers in the bakery, and explodes in anger in his sleep, calling down curses in Yiddish on his enemies - everyone from the Bolsheviks to Richard Nixon. Grandpa Rocky and Max share a house, a heritage, an extended family and eventually a special bond as the fiery old man shapes and guides a little boy's growth into manhood. But neither quite expects to end up together as roommates during the turbulent 1960s when Max goes to the University of Michiga