New York, NY, Oct. 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Newark Minutemen by Leslie K. Barry, was released by Morgan James Publishing today. The historical novel is based on the incredible true story from the 1930s about a Jewish boxer who goes undercover for the mob and FBI to fight fascism in New Jersey during the Great Depression. This is not a WW2 story. It comes well before, on American soil, and it reveals a little known passage of U.S. history. How many know about the Nazi uniformed brigades who goose-stepped down New York Ave? Or the Hitler Youth camps that indoctrinated German-American children in the Catskills and Long Island? It’s a surprisingly timely story as intolerance and totalitarianism are surging around the globe again, and democracy everywhere is under assault.
The novel takes place at a time when many remained in denial, and Hitler’s fanatics could brashly goose-step down American streets waving twin Swastika and U.S. flags, led by German born Fuhrer Fritz Kuhn. The Newark Minutemen were a resistance movement of Jewish boxers who rose up to fight this German-American Nazi shadow party, the racial divide they were creating, and perhaps the greatest enemy of all, American complacency against looming evil.
It is based on the real-life experiences of Barry’s uncle, one of the boxers with the Newark Minutemen. Barry pieced together first-hand accounts from her 95-year old mother, interviews, FBI reports, boxes of undercover source material and years of research. A star-crossed love affair drives the story of conflict and courage, as Jewish boxer, Yael Newman is recruited into the Newark Minutemen and joins the fight to clobber the German-American Nazi Bund. During his undercover mission he becomes entangled in an unlikely romance, falling in love with the enemy’s daughter.
Newark Minutemen’s feature film rights have been optioned by Fulwell 73, the independent production company behind The Late Late Show with James Corden and Auschwitz in Color.
“Newark Minutemen is an epic story of battles, boxers and mafia, overlaid with an explosive love affair that compares with the classic star-crossed stories from Casablanca to Titanic,” Leo Pearlman, Partner and Producer at Fulwell 73 told Variety. “This would be an important story to tell at any time in history, but right now, with the lessons we can learn from the past, it is an essential one that everyone should see."
Newark Minutemen by Leslie K. Barry. Morgan James Publishing. 366 pages.
Trade paperback $21.95. Released October 6, 2020.
ISBN 9781631950735
Read more about Leslie K. Barry’s novel Newark Minutemen here.
Facebook Newark Minutemen Twitter @NMinutemen
Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Goodreads, Bookshop
See coverage of Barry and the book in the Jerusalem Post, i23 TV & the Star Ledger.
If you would like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview with Leslie K. Barry, please contact Thought Gang Media: owen@thoughtgangmedia.com
About the Author: Leslie K. Barry is most recently a screenwriter, author and executive producer. Her previous professional work includes executive positions with major entertainment companies including Turner Broadcasting, Hasbro/Parker Brothers, Mattel, Mindscape Video Games. Other areas of business include executive for the first e-shopping platform called eShop and marketing for Lotus Development and AOL. She was an Alpha Sigma Tau at JMU in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley and attended a grad program at Harvard. She has spent the last twenty five years with her husband in Tiburon, CA raising their four kids and dog. On the side, she’s devoted to genealogy where she has uncovered many ideas for her developing stories and created family storybooks. For fun, she skis in Sun Valley, Idaho, plays tennis and visits her family in Maryland where they often enjoy Maryland hard crabs.
About Morgan James Publishing: Morgan James publishes trade quality titles designed to educate, encourage, inspire, or entertain readers with current, consistent, relevant topics that are available everywhere books are sold. More info at morgan-james-publishing.com
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