A con man finds redemption in the Southwest in new comedy “Getting New Mexico”
Can the quirky, anti-elitist culture of the Southwest save the soul of an unrepentant jerk? Aaron Schuyler is a ne’er-do-well, a cheat, an exploiter, a drunk, and a lifelong New Yorker. New Mexico is about to change everything about Schuyler, in the new comic novel Getting New Mexico by Rhenna St. Clair.
A fresh and witty comedy with unforgettably eccentric characters, Getting New Mexico is an exciting debut novel by a new voice in fiction.
At 52, Aaron Schuyler has destroyed his life and doesn’t care. Professionally ruined, flat broke, and estranged from his ex-wife and children, Schuyler’s only concerns are sponging free drinks by crashing funerals and staying on the good side of his primary money supply, his formidable British mother, Clementine.
But Clementine has a plan. Praying for divine aid from her personal god, Winston Churchill, Clementine creates a Winston-inspired scheme to reform her worthless son. Clementine presents Schuyler with an ultimatum — she’ll bail him out one last time, if he moves from New York to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and takes a job at the local Sam’s Club.
In New Mexico, Schuyler discovers a world where all of his assumptions about life no longer work. He finds himself in a culture where self-reliance and compassion counts more than power or status. Stripped of his former wealth and reduced to wearing clothes from Walmart, Schuyler finds that people no longer excuse his bad behavior. With his survival depending on keeping a real job, Schuyler is forced to develop new habits of responsibility and sobriety.
Along the way, Schuyler meets unconventional people unlike any he’s ever known — above all, the beautiful and no-nonsense Anita Chatterjee, HR director at Sam’s Club, with whom Schuyler is immediately smitten.
For the first time in his life, Schuyler wants to be a better person. Can Schuyler adapt to a life of responsibility? To a mature relationship? To New Mexico? To shaking scorpions out of his boots? Winston help him!
A highly entertaining story of late-in-life reinvention, Getting New Mexico will make readers root for the bad guy to become the good guy he can be.