Charlie Molloy is an old-school traveling salesman who loves people and airport bars because he will never see those people again. He is a master of The Chat. Lately, though, he doesn't understand how people can take out a phone in the middle of a conversation they're having with him to check their social networks. He doesn't understand it so much that the young people at his company decide he's an old fool who needs to go. He finds himself on Singer Island, Florida, looking at shells, trying to get The Chat going in the local bars during afternoons of drinking the house red, and wondering what it all meant. Donna, his wife of many years, wants to fix him, but she knows that no one can fix another person. All she can do is love him. And he loves her. And then came Clare. Traveling salesman Charlie Molloy is from the old school. He genuinely loves people and thinks the best way to do his job is by making personal connections with his clients through what he calls The Chat. Unfortunately, his views don't mesh with those of his new boss, who believes the only effective way of making a sale is from behind a computer or smartphone screen. Forced into early retirement and a subsequent identity crisis, Charlie and his wife, Donna, find themselves on Singer Island, FL. Charlie has nothing to do but go to the beach and try to revive The Chat in local bars in the afternoons--that is, until he meets Clare. Verdict Elegantly written, this self-published first novel is the Death of a Salesman for the digital age. Charlie's struggles to find his place in a world that has left him behind are reminiscent of those of Arthur Miller's iconic Willy Loman. Ultimately, however, this novel is about the importance of family (especially fathers and daughters), of making connections with the people around us, and of taking the time to unplug from our digital devices so those bonds can form.-- Elisabeth Clark, West Florida P.L., Pensacola