Philadelphia author Jim Zervanos will be at Ladies Night at Jane Chalfant on Thursday, December 10th.  Learn more about his book, LOVE Park.

LOVE Park — The Must-Read Debut Novel by Jim Zervanos
The Story of a Greek-American Family Caught Between Tradition and Modern Life in Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA, PA — January 20, 2009 — Jim Zervanos, author of the newly acclaimed LOVE Park is receiving rave reviews for his portrayal of a colorful Greek family living in the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia. Charles Baxter, author of National Book Award-nominated The Feast of Love, declares, “LOVE Park is both funny and moving, and I enjoyed it tremendously.” Larry Platt, editor-in-chief of Philadelphia magazine, calls LOVE Park “a love letter to Philadelphia” and a “must-read debut.” The protagonist, twenty-six-year-old Peter Pappas vows to change his life this summer — or at least to move out of his childhood home. His father, a Greek Orthodox priest, still rules the roost while his mother tends their brood. His teenage sister doesn’t dare confess a shocking romance, and his older brother chooses to deceive his non-Greek girlfriend rather than disappoint his parents — anything to preserve the sanctity of the family. When an affair with an exotic widow jump-starts Peter’s journey into adulthood, he learns a secret that just might set his family free — if it doesn’t destroy them first. LOVE Park is published by Cable Publishing and will be available in bookstores nationwide starting May 1st.

Eleni N. Gage, author of North of Ithaca, raves: “LOVE Park is a Greek-American The Graduate, featuring a disaffected protagonist who has dreams of grandeur and a sexy widow who is his Mrs. Robinson. But beyond that, this engrossing debut novel is also an ode to the city of Philadelphia, and a tribute to forgiveness and the power of brotherly love.” Helen Papanikolas, author of The Time of the Little Black Bird, wrote of the young author: “I have often wondered why we Greek Americans have not produced writers like the young Saul Bellow. I think we now have one.”

Jim Zervanos’s fiction has appeared, most recently, in the Cimarron Review, Green Mountains Review, and Philly Fiction, a collection of short stories featuring Philadelphia writers. His fiction has also appeared in the Chicago Quarterly Review, Hawaii Review, Cream City Review, Failbetter.com, and Folio, which recognized his short story “Church Camp” as the journal’s best of 1999. Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, he earned his BA and MA from Bucknell University, where he was an Academic All-America baseball player and, upon graduation in 1992, won the William Bucknell Prize for English. Since 1995 he has taught English at Penncrest High School in Media, Pennsylvania. He has been a contributor at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and is a graduate of The MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina. For a year he lived in Athens, Greece, where he finished writing LOVE Park, his first novel. He lives with his wife in Philadelphia. www.jimzervanos.com.