Cuppy and Stew Press Release

For a review copy or author interview, contact
Nancy Sayles, The Sayles Organization
Office 818-999-9571 / Cell 818-439-2329
saylesorg@gmail.com

Real People, Real Tragedy — A Story Told the Way it Must Have Happened —
Grabs Readers in Eric Goodman’s New Can’t-Put-it-Down Novel, Cuppy and Stew.

Over the years, novelist Eric Goodman’s books have been described in many ways – readable, fascinating, raw, honest. He describes his latest work a little differently -- part historical novel, part memoir, part love story. Goodman might be a little too modest when referring to Cuppy and Stew (IF SF Publishing, San Francisco), as this book also deserves such superlatives as riveting, touching, powerful.

Cuppy and Stew tells the story of a real-life tragedy, the bombing of United Flight 629, the first example of American air piracy in 1955 that exploded the aircraft twelve minutes after taking off, killing everyone aboard.
Knowing what is to come engages the reader totally at the very outset by going back to where and how this incredible couple met and became parents of two daughters, Sherry and Susan, who were so very young when their parents were taken from them on that ill-fated United airplane. The story, narrated by the younger daughter Susan, takes these girls from childhood into young adulthood, through all the very real as well as imagined strug-gles of youngsters forced to grow up too soon, too fast.


Perhaps the most fascinating fact is that Susan, in real life, is married to author Eric Goodman. Cuppy and Stew were her own parents, featured in a work of fiction, yes, but in a story so eloquently told, they will no doubt join the ranks of Goodman’s most unforgettable characters.

About the Author:
Eric Goodman is the author of five previous novels including Twelfth and Race, Child of My Right Hand and In Days of Awe. For many years, he directed the creative writing program at Miami University in Ohio. He lives with his wife Susan in Mecklenburg, in New York and Sonoma County, California. Find him @eric-goodman.com.

Cuppy and Stew by Eric Goodman Pub Date: May, 2020 Price: $20 Paperback, 220 pages ISBN 978-1-7333864-1-8 Published by IF SF Publishing, San Francisco www.ifsfpublishing.com

Prologue — Cuppy and Stew
On November 1, 1955, a young husband and father accompanied his mother to Denver’s Stapleton Airfield. He had packed her suitcase, adding twenty-five sticks of dynamite to the clothes she had selected but would never wear. At Stapleton, the young man purchased flight insurance in his mother’s name, Daisie King, then waved goodbye as she boarded United 629, a nonstop from Denver to Seattle. Twelve minutes after taking off, the plane exploded.

This is the story of a family whose lives were transformed by that murderous young man. There are, no doubt, other stories, perhaps with circumstances even more ex-treme than ours; United 629 was a full flight. But those stories and those families would require a different author. This is the only one I know.