The short story series about aging in America that inspired the PBS American Playhouse TV trilogy produced by Linda Lavin and starring Uta Hagen, Harold Gould, Dori Brenner and Jerry Stiller, garnering Doris Roberts an Emmy nomination for 'Best Supporting Actress' in a mini-series. In America, where “old” is a dirty word, people over sixty-five are often shut out as if growing old were some kind of contagious disease. But you cannot shut the Sunset Gang out of your heart. If you let them in, they will teach you a lot about living-a subject on which, after all, they are the experts. With time running short, these intrepid residents of Sunset Village in Florida continue to thirst for life and love. “The Sunset Gang” is as lively, fun, and courageous a group as you’ll find anywhere this side of the Last Reward. The fact that you’ll find them at Sunset Village, a condominium retirement community in Florida – where an ambulance siren is the theme song and cycling at a stately pace is strenuous exercise – does not mean that they are ready to pack it all in. Not by a long shot. Sex and romantic love keep Sunset Village bubbling with activity. If you were to walk down one of its well-tended paths, you might spot Jenny and Bill sitting on a bench, acting like young lovers, and never suspect that they are married – to other people! And at the pool, Max Bernstein, with an expertise that comes from five decades of skirt chasing, is singling out attractive widows. But the true beating heart of Sunset Village is the love of family and friends. Widowed Molly Berkowitz learns that although her son and daughter may be failures in the eyes of the world, they are well worth bragging about, and Isaac Kramer begins to feel truly at home when the gray-haired boys down at the Laundromat start calling him by his old neighborhood nickname, “Itch.”
Author
Acclaimed author, playwright, poet, and essayist Warren Adler is best known for The War of the Roses, his masterpiece fictionalization of a macabre divorce that was adapted into the iconic dark comedy that starred Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito. Following the success of his The War of the Roses, Adler went on to option and sell film rights to more than a dozen of his novels and short stories to Hollywood and major television networks. Random Hearts, The Sunset Gang, Private Lies, Funny Boys, Madeline’s Miracles, Trans-Siberian Express and his Fiona Fitzgerald mystery series are only a few titles that have forever left Adler’s mark on contemporary American authorship from page to stage to screen. Adler illuminates the intricacies of the modern American family through wit and realism, a trademark that has earned him the moniker ‘master of dysfunction’. On the other hand, he navigates the turbulent waters of the American political and social scene with unsurpassed authenticity; his political thrillers such as The Henderson Equation, The Casanova Embrace, and American Quartet - a ‘New York Times notable crime book’ are born from his experiences as a former White House correspondent, and co-owner of Washington Dossier Magazine, chronicling the social history of the nation’s capital from 1975-1991. He was also a businessman and once campaign strategist to President Richard Nixon. With over 40 years of an insider’s view of the exclusive domain of the nation’s political elite, Adler writes with a unique insight and command rendering him an invaluable voice in the evolving American experience, and a trademark in American literature.
