Journal of a UFO Investigator

Name: Journal of a UFO Investigator
Brand: Blackstone Audiobooks
Availability: InStock
Author: David Halperin
ISBN: 9781441775207

Author: David Halperin

Narrator: Sean Runnette

Unabridged: 10 hr 38 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Published: 02/03/2011

Categories: Fiction

Synopsis

This sparkling debut novel, set against the backdrop of the troubled 1960s, is a comingofage story that weaves together a compelling psychological drama and vivid outerspace fantasy. Danny Shapiro is an isolated teenager living with a dying mother, a hostile father, and no friends. To cope with these circumstances, Danny forges a reality of his own, which includes the sinister Three Men in Black, mysterious lake creatures with insectlike carapaces, a beautiful young seductress and thief, with whom Danny falls in love, and an alienhuman love child whoif only Danny can keep her alivewill redeem the planet. Dannys fictional world blends so seamlessly with his daytoday life that profound questions about what is real and what is not, what is possible and what is imagined, begin to arise. As the hero in his alien landscape, he finds the strength to deal with his own life and to stand up to demons both real and imagined. Told with heart and intellect, Journal of a UFO Investigator calls to mind the works of Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem.

About David Halperin

David Halperin taught Judaic studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, until his retirement in 2000. He has published five nonfiction books on Jewish mysticism and messianism, as well as the coming-of-age novel Journal of a UFO Investigator (2011). He blogs about UFOs, religion, and related subjects at DavidHalperin.net.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Carla on May 17, 2013

In the back of this book, in the acknowledgements section, the author says one early reader told him of a draft of the book: "You've got two stories here, and they keep getting in each other's way." I think this is a very accurate observation, and I don't think it ever stopped being true in later re......more

Goodreads review by Sandi on February 21, 2011

When I won this book through FirstReads, I had no idea how it would be. From the blurb, it sounded kind of weird and depressing. Well, it is weird and depressing. It's also very well-done. Danny Shapiro's mom is sick. She has a heart problem that was aggravated by Danny's birth. His dad yells at him......more

Goodreads review by Simcha on February 15, 2011

Danny Shapiro is an awkward teenager boy with a sick mother, a disapproving father and few friends. But Danny’s troubles are set aside as he recounts his adventures as a UFO investigator, beginning with his first encounter with a UFO, in 1962. Realty and fiction blur in Danny’s vivid tale of a secre......more

Goodreads review by Joey on March 09, 2017

Many of the reviewers here on Goodreads have expressed frustration that the sci-fi element of Journal of a UFO Investigator is a construct, present only in the made up journal that young Danny Shapiro writes as an escape from real life. Though there are some issues with the execution, I think those......more

Goodreads review by Dale on July 20, 2012

If this were baseball, Halperin would be swinging for the fence, but coming up short. David Halperin's Journal of a UFO Investigator is a semi-autobiographical novel. It ties together UFOs, death, growing up, family dynamics and religion in general (and Judaism in particular) in the story of Dan......more