Adam Rapp is best known as a prolific Obie Award-winning-playwright, respected novelist, filmmaker, and director. He has written more than ten plays, including "American Sligo" and "Red Light Winter"(nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2006); directed his first feature film, "Winter Passing" in 2005; published several young adult novels and an adult novel, The Year of Endless Sorrows (2007); and received two Drama Desk nominations as a director for his production of "Blackbird". Now, in his first graphic novel, BALL PEEN HAMMER (First Second Books / October 1st, 2009 / $17.99 paperback original), Rapp explores civilization at its darkest hour in this new visual format.
In the tradition of classics like A Clockwork Orange and 1984, BALL PEEN HAMMER is a menacing look at a world in chaos, humanity at its worst, and the indomitable human spirit. Ravaged by war and plague, chaos bubbles out of the sewers of an anonymous desolate city, as the world we know is dying. After most of the city, and potentially the world, has succumbed to a gruesome plague, Welton hides away in his basement room in an effort to save himself. Lost, alone, and infected with the plague himself, he unwittingly becomes part of a terrifying collective that is doing the unthinkable: killing children.
With similar stylings to those of recent successes Children of Men and the superhero dystopia Watchmen, BALL PEEN HAMMER portrays a future where the characters resonate profoundly with everyone who enters their catastrophic world. It is an unflinching meditation on art and human nature, and an unforgettable tale of brief human connections, violently severed.
Adam Rapp is currently the playwright-in-residence at Edge Theater Company in Martha's Vineyard, where he will direct the world premiere of his play, "The Metal Children," this fall. Rapp is the author of several young adult novels, including 33 Snowfish, The Buffalo Tree, and Under the Wolf, Under the Dog, which was shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and received the Schneider Book Award from the American Library Association. His first adult novel, The Year of Endless Sorrows, was published to great acclaim in 2007. He has written more than ten plays, and received countless awards and honors, including two Lincoln Center le Compte de Nuoy Awards, a 2000 Roger L. Stevens Award from the Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, the 2001 Helen Merrill Award for Emerging Playwrights, and the Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Rapp directed his first feature film, "Winter Passing" with Ed Harris, Zooey Deschanel and Will Ferrell in 2005. BALL PEEN HAMMER is his first graphic novel.
George O'Connor is the author of several picture books, including the New York Times bestseller Kapow!, Ker-splash, Sally and the Some-Thing, and his latest, Uncle Bigfoot. His debut graphic novel, Journey into Mohawk Country, was published by First Second Books in 2006.
For more information, visit www.firstsecondbooks.com.
