Book cover for Zayde's Arcade: Coming of Age in Coney Island by Andy Smith

Zayde's Arcade

Coming of Age in Coney Island

2019 Released
268 Pages
4-5 Hours
Audiobook Unavailable
Author Academy EliteISBN 9781640854208

Is love an enticing game---or just a scary rollercoaster ride?

In the summer of 1966, sixteen-year-old Jason goes to work at his Jewish grandfather's penny arcade in Coney Island. While working there, he plunges head over heels for Anna, a beautiful Italian girl. Little does he know what lies ahead. 

Amid the constant rumbling of a roller coaster and the cacophony of pinball machines, transistor radios, bumper cars, hot dogs and cotton candy, Jason barrels through a dizzying array of twists and turns. 

Thrilled by the first pangs of love and shaken by his first death in the family, Jason doesn't know which way is up. And if that wasn't enough, he clashes with Anna's macho boyfriend and her overbearing father. Along the way, Jason stumbles upon a deep, dark secret which shakes his understanding of the very definition of love and loyalty. 

While Jason embarks on his Coney Island journey with childlike innocence, will he emerge victorious or battle weary in a complex adult world? 

Andy Smith

Andy Smith has been making theatre and performance professionally since 2003 (operating and presenting work between 2003 and 2013 under the name a smith). In this time he has been involved in creating a large body of solo works for theatre. These pieces are characteristically simple and accessible in form, but unafraid to approach and address big and complex subjects. His most recent solo projects are all that is solid melts into air (2011) and commonwealth (2012), which since 2013 have toured as a double bill under the collective title two from a smith. More information on these projects can be found below. Along with Karl James, Andy is also the co-director of the award winning plays An Oak Tree, ENGLAND and The Author by Tim Crouch. Most recently, this collaboration has produced what happens to the hope at the end of the evening (2013), a commission for The Almeida Theatre, as well as the world premiere of Tim's latest play Adler & Gibb at The Royal Court in 2014. In 2014 Andy completed an AHRC funded practice-as-research PhD at Lancaster University, where he has also taught courses in theatre practice, performance composition, and contemporary European theatre. His latest project, The Preston Bill, has been commissioned by Fuel as part of their project New Theatre in Your Neighbourhood, which aims to find better ways to tour work and develop audiences around the UK. The piece will receive its premiere at The New Continental in Preston in October 2015 before touring, with a number of work-in-development performances taking place before that.

More by Andy Smith

Why Readwise Books?

Readwise Books is an ebook & audiobook platform that automatically logs how much you and your friends read, making it fun and easy to read more. Learn more →