About the Author

Um. The author of Maynard & Jennica is Rudolph Delson, which is to say, me. And I feel like quiet modesty is the most dignified policy to pursue when writing an "About the Author" squib. In fact, I tried to convince my publishers that the dust jacket of Maynard & Jennica should read simply:

Rudolph Delson lives in Brooklyn. This is his first novel.

But apparently reticence is not permitted. My publishers wanted more. They wanted me to open up, to boast and to charm. So as a compromise, I drafted the following, for inclusion in the "Acknowledgments" section of the book:

I was born in San Jose, California in 1975, and I attended the public schools there, where I got mostly good grades. I had bright red hair as a child and liked apple juice, nature programs, and hiding. My mother was a sculptor, my father was an engineer, and my sister shared her caramels with me when my allowance ran out and I couldn't buy myself candy, which was good of her. At my bar mitzvah, I impressed everyone with my singing of the haftorah.

I went to Stanford and later N.Y.U. Law. I have made a living, miscellaneously, as a paralegal at the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice, as a law clerk for the Honorable James R. Browning of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and as a litigation associate at the law firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. There was also one year in there when I lived in Berlin and earned money by selling subscriptions to my personal letters. This was profitable not because I had a lot of subscribers, but because I charged each of them two hundred dollars a year, and then mailed all of them identical letters. Still, the letters were occasionally salacious, so the subscribers probably got a better deal than they deserved.

I now live in a rented apartment in Brooklyn. It is a fine apartment, but the living room needs to be repainted, and I know it. My father is now retired, my mother is now in real estate, and my sister no longer eats caramels because they give her headaches.

It was the best I could manage. As for what I look like, here is one of the author photos that my publishers rejected:

(Photo by the fabulous Alex Freund.) If you're still curious to learn more, perhaps visit my website, www.rudolphdelson.com.