Launch Party!
Jody Weiner reads from his new novel
Raise Your Other Right Hand: a novel
published by Speaking Volumes
Jody Weiner will be in conversation with Scott James
“Nick and Nora Charles meet The Lincoln Lawyer in this slam-dunk novel.”
—Byron Spooner Author of Rounding Up a Bison: Stories, Pushcart Prize Nominee, winner of Dillydoun International Fiction Prize
Author and former trial attorney Jody Weiner takes readers on a thrilling roller coaster ride that winds through issues of addiction, sexual identity, and the trappings of fame and greed in his new novel, Raise Your Other Right Hand.
When NBA superstar Radon Jaalaba goes missing from a nationally televised game on Christmas after fleeing the scene of a drug-related shooting that kills his intimate friend and a responding police officer, attorney Archie Krafter is handed the case of his career. Once America’s hero on the basketball court, Radon is now on trial for his life, battling addiction and the weight of a career-threatening secret.
Radon’s case isn’t the only thing on Archie Krafter’s plate. Archie and his wife, Lora, a talented musician and proprietor of a small repertory theater, find themselves ensnared in her notorious family’s business. Lora’s estranged father, Sal Dellacozzi, the aging “Rapini King” of Northern California, calls on Lora to look after her younger brother, Dominic, who also seeks Archie’s legal help as he has been unjustly accused in an international identity theft ring operating from a Dellacozzi Industries building.
“Although the book is fiction, Radon’s trial is set during the last NBA owners’ lockout and players’ strike, lending authenticity to his fading hope of ever playing again, and providing context to satirize a silent ban on openly gay players in the NBA that may still exist,” Weiner explained.
Along the harrowing ride to Radon and Dominic’s days of reckoning, Archie and Lora’s marriage is tested in ways for which they could never prepare. Still in love after 13 years, their compatible neuroses allow them to share their personal and professional lives, too often crossing into each other’s lane while driving this fast-paced narrative toward its satisfying and unexpected conclusion.
Jody Weiner is a writer, attorney, producer, and author. His novel, Prisoners of Truth, is a national IPPY award winner, (Council Oak Books 2004, pb 2006). Along with Dr. Jane Goodall and other animal activists, Weiner co-authored Kinship with Animals (COB 2007), an anthology of true interspecies encounters, where he writes about serving as attorney to Koko the signing gorilla. Weiner was a consulting producer and wrote additional dialogue for the animated feature film Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs Evil (TWC and Kanbar Ent. 2011); was consulting producer/counsel for the Genesis award-winning documentary A Conversation with Koko (1999); and penned the original comedy screenplay Heck No! (adapted for streaming series in 2023). He currently serves as Board President of San Francisco’s Litquake Foundation, producer of the largest and longest-running annual literary festival west of The Mississippi. Crime Therapy, Weiner’s sequel to Raise Your Other Right Hand, is scheduled for publication in 2026.
Scott James is an award winning journalist and bestselling author. His published works include “Trial By Fire”, “Alone Together” the novel “The Sower” His reporting has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and CNN, amongst others. He’s a member of the board of directors of Litquake and co-founder of the Castro Writers’ Cooperative, a co-working community for writers.
Praise for the work of Jody Weiner
“In his seriocomic, fast-paced novel, Jody Weiner tells the story of Radon Jaalaba, a reckless, charismatic NBA superstar who stumbles into a double murder while scoring drugs. Weiner sets his tale in San Francisco and he knows the city intimately: its natural splendor and rogue history, its gossip and intrigues. He creates a wide kaleidoscope of colorful characters and, being a veteran attorney, offers an insider’s keen understanding of law and order, city politics and jurisprudence.” —Edward Guthmann: Author of Wild Seed, Searching for my Brother Dan and past film/book critic for the San Francisco Chronicle
“Jody Weiner’s Raise Your Other Right Hand is funny, wry, and so thrilling you can’t stop turning the pages. Weiner’s tale of a superstar caught up in a bizarre double shooting will keep the reader guessing but riveted until the very end.” —Frances Dinkelspiel: Award-winning Author of Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California
Made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation