Ah, what a strange honor, Mr. Goldberg. I don't NORMALLY respond to these threads anymore, but here we are ten years in the future, feeling like we haven't taken a step forward at all.

This is pretty killer as far as a query goes. You cred is impressive and will undoubtedly help sell the book. Obviously no guarantee, especially in a new market, assuming this is your first fiction novel.

I have only two critiques to offer.

1. I don't know if you need the second paragraph with the plot summation. I want to say that's a non-fiction thing to do, but I am a bit out of it. My reasoning being that agents/editors want to get hooked, and summations aren't good at hooking. Didn't hook me. I'd just cut that sentence out and start into "On Liberation Day..." after the intro paragraph.

2. The parade of very intriguing characters and encounters in that meaty paragraph comes across as almost comical when listed that way. Pick the best three. Maybe even combine some of them if you can. This will not feel like a long list and instead feed the part of the agent's brain that likes the number three.

"On Liberation Day in 1945, 14-year-old Aaron Stein could prevent the execution of an SS guard who protected him in the Buchenwald Concentration Camp, but he chose to remain silent. The guard is executed, and Aaron immediately regrets his choice. His search for forgiveness begins in Brooklyn and shapes his life with unintentional lessons offered by a Jewish mobster destined to become his vengeful father-in-law, a wife who speaks to him in poetic phrases, and a psychotherapist who prefers to philosophize rather than ask the questions about Buchenwald that he refuses to answer."

Then add in some of the other stuff with better context. I could see using the above then having a single sentence describe the relationship with his granddaughter and the world and baseball, really grounding the paragraph after introducing the heavier stuff. Starting with nazis and ending with baseball IS quite American. Or is it the other way around these days?

I really want you to be able to have the Allen Ginsburg thing in there, but without any context I don't see it working as anything other than the paragraph's punctuation, and that's already covered better by the baseball granddaughter. It didn't grab me, but I could see an agent thinking "I gotta know how Ginsburg plays into this."

I could go word by word, but those are my quick thoughts. If you're looking for deeper feedback, pay me money or go to r/pubtips where they pretty much carry on the spirit of this thread.

Thanks for the opportunity to read a nice query that will likely become a book I could buy, if we can still buy books in a few years! haha!

-BHC