CENTRE COUNTY — For author Joel Burcat, “Whiz Kid” isn’t just a novel. It’s a generational collaboration and a literary duet with his late father, David S. Burcat.
Set to release Tuesday, July 1, through Sunbury Press, the historical fiction debut marks a major departure from Burcat’s award-winning legal thrillers, diving headfirst into 1950s Philadelphia, postwar Jewish life and the golden age of baseball.
At the heart of the novel is a powerful story. The book’s seed was “Match Point,” a beat style novella written by Joel’s father decades ago and abandoned in a box of college papers.
“My mother handed me his old papers and said, ‘Do you want these?’” Burcat recalled. “Buried in there was ‘Match Point.’ I read it and knew I wanted to do something with it, but it took nearly eight years for the idea to marinate.”
That idea? To preserve his father’s novella word-for-word as a “novel within a novel” and build a larger story around it.
“His writing had this Kerouac energy. Bold … very much of its time,” Burcat said. “I didn’t want to modernize it. I wanted readers to feel like they were reading a raw first draft by my main character, Ben Green.”
“Whiz Kid” follows 25-year-old Ben Green, a Jewish World War II veteran and aspiring novelist, navigating postwar life in gritty South Philadelphia. His best friend, Stan, hails from wealth and offers him a job at his father’s prestigious ad agency. But Ben, instead, dives into writing his own novel, hoping to carve his own path.
The book draws deeply from Burcat’s family history. Much of the story unfolds in the now-vanished Jewish market district in Philadelphia. Burcat recalled visiting his grandfather’s South Philly store as a child, and later recording interviews with his mother and grandmother, preserving firsthand stories of immigrant life.
“I had all this living history at my fingertips,” he said. “My grandfather started with a pushcart. Between that and all the stories I’d heard, I could recreate a world that’s gone but still echoes today.”
The novel unfolds against the backdrop of the 1950 Phillies pennant race. Baseball is more than just a setting; it’s a shared language between characters, a metaphor for ambition, identity and the pursuit of belonging.
“Back then, baseball was the sport,” Burcat said. “I used the real Phillies season as a timeline. Ben attends three actual games, including the legendary pennant clincher against the Dodgers.”
Despite its nostalgic setting, “Whiz Kid” tackles enduring themes of faith, antisemitism, racism and class divide. Through characters like Ben, Stan and the flirtatious but formidable Eileen Van Cleave, the book explores the tension between personal desire and societal pressure.
For Burcat, the emotional core of Whiz Kid lies in its posthumous collaboration with his father.
“In a way, it’s like ‘Field of Dreams.’ This was my chance to have a game of catch with my dad,” he said. “Seeing his name on the cover, including his photo … it means everything. This book gave me a way to reconnect with him after 27 years.”
“Whiz Kid” releases Tuesday, July 1, and will be available in paperback and online through Sunbury Press. For Burcat, it’s more than just a book launch. It’s a tribute, a legacy and a long-awaited debut for a father’s forgotten story.
