Product Description
These three novels of the 1930s constitute an American classic. In their own way, they do for the Jewishmmigrants of Brooklyn what Studs Lonigan did for the Irish of Chicago. So it is no surprise that, upon their first publication, Lonigan’s creator welcomed them in a review for The Nation, praising Fuchs’s keen eye, excellent ear for dialogue, and quick perception of the grotesque, the whimsical, the tragic. "I know of few novelists in America today," James T. Farrell said, "who possess Fuchs's natural talent and energy or his sense of life."

In his 80s Fuchs wrote: "I used to go on long walks . . . take in the street sights at night. I freely used the sights and happenings in the three novels I wrote in my 20s: Summer in Williamsburg (1934), Homage to Blenholt (1936), and Low Company (1937). . . . I had 'ideas' for each of these books, but I soon tired of them, ideas being -- for me, at any rate -- unsatisfactory. I abandoned them . . . and devoted myself simply to the tenement: the life in the hallways, the commotion at the dumbwaiters, the assortment of characters in the building, their strivings and preoccupations, their troubles in the interplay of the sexes. There was always a ferment, slums or no slums. The slums didn't hold them down."

Time hasn't held down these novels, either. Like Joseph Mitchell's New York sketches of the same period, they are as alive today as the day they were first printed, as tropical-rainforest lush, as exuberant. What's true remains so, and Farrell spoke the truth back in 1937: there are still few novelists in America today who possess Fuchs's talent, his energy, his sense of life. ... Read more

Product Description
A major American novel, and arguably the finest work of literature ever to emerge from a US prison, On the Yard is a book of penetrating psychological realism in which Malcolm Braly paints an unforgettable picture of the complex and frightening world of the penitentiary. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Do not read Lethem's Introduction until AFTER you've read the book
A great work.Do yourself a favor---save Lethem's introduction for an epilogue.He gives details of the plot that, in my opinion, would have changed the way this great prison novel reads.

Outstanding Book!
This is a wonderful book, very well written, with a great cast of characters. I recommend it highly!

forget raymond chandler & jim thompson. this is the real deal.
on the back of my copy there is a blurb from kurt vonnegut jr that says this is "surely the great american prison novel." well, i haven't read a whole lot of prison literature, but i would love to find another book of this kind and calibur. "on the yard" soars with a strong narrative drive and a large cast of interesting & fully developed characters. in my life's reading, edward bunker's memoir "education of a felon" is the only comparable peer that this book has in american crime writing. great stuff. i now very much look forward to reading mr braly's memoir "false starts."

a lost masterpiece
The NYRB lost classics series strikes gold again-- a rich, masterful, deeply authentic journey through prison life in the 1960s. With arresting imagery, and captivating characterization, Braly, himself a long-time con, leads us on a labyrinthine tour of the world behind the walls. His powers of empathy render every character as a tormeted, struggling, human soul.

The classic american prison novel?
Today, in America, we take it for granted if you do something wrong and get caught your going to the big house. So much so that no matter where you live or what you make you probably know someone who knows someone in a prison. This book is about the tension between the hardened career criminal and the 'crime of passion' criminal, and since this conflict takes place behind bars there will be no real winners even if the crime of passion man achieves some sort of moral victory.

If you can imagine what it's like to to shed 40 years of skin around some of the craziest loons never to read a book then you can imagine why we need more novels about prison life. I consider this the confederacy of the dunces of prison novels.Read it and bolster boy, enjoy them and be good. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (7)

A horse of a different color
John Franklin Bardin's 1946 novel shares most of its affinities with the genre of the noir novel (as perfected by writers like Cornel Woolrich or Dorothy B. Hughes), but it's something else besides... it starts out as a kind of humorous fantasy novel, much like something out of Thorne Smith, with a patient telling his psychiatrist three leprechauns pay him every day to complete different silly tasks such as wearing flowers in his hair. Then there's a murder, and then by the fourth chap[ter the novel starts all over again with the same narrator... who is being told he has a different name than he thought previously.

It would be wrong to give more away, but the whole work is certainly one of a kind, and partakes of many different genres and experiments greatly with the idea of an unreliable narrator (indeed, the great theme of the book is how much you can trust someone else's testimony). Its intriguing play with identity seems to anticipate later (and unfortunately better) books such as Patricia Highsmith's THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, and it certainly is a page turner. But it's ultimately not a very good book. There are too many murders, too many revelations that everything you'd been reading was not what you had thought it was; and the central intrigue that ties the whole plot together (and is of course only revealed at the end) is too outlandish. You can see why Millipede Press included it in its superb and beautifully bound re-issues of horror novels, but as fine as its aspirations are, it never really takes off to the level of a Highsmith or a Woolrich at their best.

Of Leprechauns, paranoia and dark amnesia
John Franklin Bardin was born in 1916 and during his lifetime he wrote ten dark or noir crime novels. He refused to recognize any difference between genres, once stating his belief there are only good and bad novels. According to Jonathan Lethem, who wrote a thoughtful and lengthy foreword to this edition, Bardin once said that Graham Green, Henry Green and Henry James were influential on his writing. The novel, Bardin's first, was published in 1946 and it is a very interesting noir novel indeed.

Amnesia and paranoia are the subjects and the characters, all unusual and distinct, sustain a complicated and bizarre plot through an abrupt but eminently satisfying conclusion. This is by no means a perfect novel, and the sixty-year-old style is sometimes disturbingly devoid of emotion. Shocking action is abruptly presented and just as abruptly disposed of. There is a fairly lengthy center section in which the amnesiac who is the protagonist, is established in his new and very much lower class life on Coney Island. Dr. George Matthews, a prominent psychologist, with a practice in midtown, and a comfortable upper class living, is confronted by a new client who arrives with a fresh hibiscus in his hair. For today's readers, especially those of us who lived through the seventies and eighties of the last century, that is nothing special, a man with a flower in his hair. In 1945, the sight was unusual to say the least.

We sense something odd and a little off kilter about the good Dr. Matthews, almost from the very beginning. He appears to have more than passing interest in the burgeoning sexuality he observes around him and he seems to identify rather too strongly with his new patient, Jacob Blunt, the man who wears a hibiscus. Blunt reveals that while he is wealthy enough to afford the counseling service of Dr. Matthews, he is working for a couple of midtown leprechauns, not Irish, he assures the doctor, American leprechauns. What's more, he is really anxious to be told that he must be hallucinating, is withdrawing from reality, and the events he is witnessing and doing are not real. He is happily losing his mind, which is far better, he believes, than being trapped in the apparent lunacy of this strange alter world.

The reader is rather suddenly brought up short when the doctor almost eagerly agrees to enter Mr. Blunt's world. From there we are drawn farther and farther into this weird world of murder, large horses, amnesia and paranoia.Events spiral at a relatively calm pace out of Dr. Matthews ken and out of his control, until the last section of the book in which a world a-tilt is set once more aright. Almost.

This edition, from Millipede Press of Colorado, carries a striking cover painting by Salvador Dali.

An off-beat noirish mystery -- but nothing special
Having recently come across several favorable references to the novels of John Franklin Bardin, especially THE DEADLY PERCHERON, I decided to give it a try.The story takes place in New York City in 1943-1944.The narrator is a psychiatrist by the name of George Matthews.The novel begins when a new patient enters his office wearing a scarlet hibiscus in his hair and announces "Doctor, I think I'm losing my mind."Strange things involving leprechauns have been happening to the patient, so he consults Dr. Matthews.And Matthews is quickly sucked into a vortex of bizarre events -- including murdered bodies with percherons left tethered nearby, amnesia induced by blows to the head and drug/shock therapy, a knife-throwing midget, and a Coney Island funhouse.

THE DEADLY PERCHERON might have been somewhat novel in style and themes in 1946, but no longer.It has some decent scenes exploring identity, sanity versus insanity, and amnesia and memory, but on the whole the book is nothing special.Something that I read said Bardin's work was similar to that of Patricia Highsmith, but for my money Highsmith's Ripley novels are much more engaging, suspenseful, and memorable than THE DEADLY PERCHERON.

A surprise !!!

I should confess that I did not know about the author before I bought this novel. In fact I bought it for my mother as a Xmas present.After reading it she told me, "it' s amazing you have to read it too!!!"
What a surprise!! She was right, it is one of the best novels I've ever read. A cocktail of madness, crime and human nature that will make you read without pause till you finish it.
The fact that Bardin' s mother suffered from a mental disorder made the author to include this thematic in this novel and part of his work
So if you want to read one of the best novels you can find buy it now...you will not regret.

Pulls you in, but then drags on.
Better written than many novels today and captures a flavor of yesteryear. The ending drags out a bit, but it is fun to see where the author takes you. ... Read more

Product Description
"An overlooked masterpiece. It may still be undervalued as Malamud's funniest and most embracing novel." --Jonathan Lethem

In A New Life, Bernard Malamud--generally thought of as a distinctly New York writer--took on the American myth of the West as a place of personal reinvention.

When Sy Levin, a high school teacher beset by alcohol and bad decisions, leaves the city for the Pacific Northwest to start over, it's no surprise that he conjures a vision of the extraordinary new life awaiting him there: "He imagined the pioneers in covered wagons entering this valley for the first time. Although he had lived little in nature Levin had always loved it, and the sense of having done the right thing in leaving New York was renewed in him." Soon after his arrival at Cascadia College, however, Levin realizes he has been taken in by a mirage. The failures pile up anew, and Levin, fired from his post, finds himself back where he started and little the wiser for it.

A New Life--as Jonathan Lethem's introduction makes clear--is Malamud at his best: with his belief in luck and new beginnings Sy Levin embodies the thwarted yearning for transcendence that is at the heart of all Malamud's work.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Great writing! A great author!
>A New Life< is great writing! A thoughtful, intriguing romance:
page 237: Once she drew back back a lock of hair . . . and revealed an ear pinned like a jewel to her head . . . . Lord, thought Levin, how beautiful women are, and how hungry my heart is.
page 202: Pauline rubbed her wet eyes against his shoulder. "I sensed it. I knew who you were."
"I felt a new identity."
"You became Levin with a beard."
page 216: Love? Levin eventually sighed. Is it love or insufficient exercise?
. . . Consider once more her lank frame, comic big tootsies, nose flying, chest bereft of female flowers . . . . He wanted no tying down with ropes . . . (he) had to have room so he could fruitfully use freedom. If ecstasied out of his senses, he let down his guard . . . Lord help Levin!

In an enigmatic forward, Malamud quotes from >Ulysses< by James Joyce, "Lo, Levin leaping lightens . . ."
Come experience Levin's amazing journey!

An average story.
As a Northwesterner, I was interested in reading this book because of its setting. The descriptions of Washington State (my home state) were done pretty well, but the dialogue between the unrealistic characters was less than satisfactory. Malamud chose to ramble on, sometimes in two page segments, in inneffective attempts at a sort of social statement. The ending of this book was absolutely ridiculous.

The Scorpion and the Frog

Sy moves away from a disintegrating life in NY to rebuild and recreate himself in the mid west. But like the scorpion in the fable;he just can't help being who he is! Malamud seemed to move into this area of exploration with more contemporary characters in his latter books-this is broadly similar to 'Dubins Lives'-where are lives are influenced by our natures and the moment in history we exist in,yet we continually try to satisfy the falsehoods of society,or other peoples expectations.
This is a good,satisfying read.Malamuds prose of even mundane surroundings leave a vivid picture in your mind,and there are great pieces of humour: ("We're going to do it on the desk?" "I hated to mention the floor,but where else is there!")
I love Malamuds work for many reasons.Yes this is a lot 'softer' than 'The Fixer' or the life of poor old Fiedelman,but it gives another insight to Malamuds take on life.
He's also a member of the 'Holy Trinity' of great 20th century Jewish writers;sitting alongside Beshevis Singer and Saul Bellow, in my view.

A great look at academia in the 1950's
Bernard Malamud is known for creating deeply flawed characters with strong ideals, and Seymour Levin - known interchangeably as S, Sy, Seymour, Levin and Lev - the central character in this wonderful novel, is no exception. A thirty year old masters graduate, down on his luck, but with the backing of an NYU education, he lands a job as a college instructor in the English department of a fictional mid-western state (Cascadia) college. This opens up an interesting cast of characters who view him with a mix of interest, disinterest, partly an inferior, an activist/idealist (his beard suggests he is a radical in the year 1950 in the midst of red-baiting and community suspicion), a potential threat, an alien, an anomaly.

Levin, "formerly a drunkard" (to quote the author) has deep seated problems and issues of self worth. He is a plain man, though definitely an idealist; however, one gets the sense early on that his idealism comes less from a passionate, inward set of convictions and more from a sense of inferiority, and a desire to find meaning in ideas. His activities and how quickly he reacts to the new environment are fascinating - he wastes no time getting inappropriately involved with a female student, sleeping with the wife of a trusting colleague or getting embroiled in the politics of the English department (here Malamud provides an interesting look at a college in a conservative town that values professional training at the expense of literature and learning) and being drawn into a myriad of ethical and moral dilemmas. Without spoiling the plot any further, Levin breaks every conventional rule in the book - this makes him less a sympathetic character and more someone the reader is almost glad to see suffer the fate he does. I would not have felt this way if I got the sense that Levin was fighting for something and doing it sensibly - while I love literature, the way Levin goes about seeking its elevation seems foolish and misguided. Perhaps more about ego and an attempt to feel worthy than out of a true love of books.

This is in essence something of a morality tale, and if I had to get to the heart of what Malamud is saying here it would have to be that misplaced idealism - without moral or ethical standards - will destroy the person within. I found it to be both gripping and bleak at the same time, but surely one of my favorite Malamud novels (and I have now read them all, so will have to find a new author to stalk!).

It seems that from the sparseness of the reviews here and from the seeming lack of recognition this book has received, it is one of his least known works. That is a shame because the characters and plot are fascinating; the themes are timeless (suspicion of someone who looks different, moral bankruptcy, clash of conservatism and radicalism, status quo versus change) and the writing is very good.

Hollow core
I am a long-time admirer of Malamud.In my view, "The Assistant" and "The Natural" are two of the outstanding novels of the 20th Century.I can still recall my gratification upon finishing "The Magic Barrel."

In the case of first-time exposure to a book,play,or movie, I believe that expectation frequently colors reaction.Given my experience with Malamud, I began to read "A New Life: with a sanguine attitude.The first page, carefully calculated to entice the reader's interest, validated this attitude.Although my enthusiasm waned over the next 20 or 30 pages, I reminded myself of Malamud's literary prowess.He's just having a little trouble revving up the engine, I thought.Happens to the best of them.My man will get off the ground shortly and we'll be soaring into the clouds.

Malamud's early take on Levin bolstered my confidence.Levin is an unsuccessful teacher, a former drunk, a tactless, gauche klutz whose professional and intellectual capacity and social skills are, to say the least, limited.The reader will identify with Levin, or root for him, or feel sorry for him, or simply connect with him, however attenuated the connection, WHEN LEVIN CHANGES. And so, the reader looks forward to finding out what manner of event, what shift in circumstance, will rehabilitate Levin, or trigger his turnabout, or spark his transformation, or signal some incipient but viable adjustment of his personality and character.Or perhaps will reveal some redeeming quality, some suppressed side of Levin that is rational, perceptive, sensitive, sensible.

It doesn't happen.Levin's self-destructive behavior accelerates, and the book plunges irreversibly into contrived farce and fatuous set-scenes devoid of credibility.Contrary to Mr. Lethem's Introduction, the book is neither comic nor tragic; it is simply hollow in its core.

To revisit the credibility issue, Levin's attempts to insert himself into and influence campus politics are so maladroit as to be unbelievable.His relationship with Pauline is self-delusional and empty-headed, and is not plausible.The ultimate implausibility, of course, is the last segment.

The book does contain well written descriptions of scenes from nature.But why so many?Some of the dialogue is clever in a stilted way.College-faculty environments are unquestionably as vicious as reflected, but surely the real-life intrigues are not conducted on the level of ineptitude depicted here.Beyond those small plus-factors, the book fails in terms of plot, narrative, and character development.Like Levin, "A New Life" is a loser.Come to think of it, Malamud's purpose may have been to write the book as a metaphor for stupidity.
... Read more

Product Description
Within the simple constraints of a glass globe, the captivating images in Travelers conjure up entire sequences of imaginary worlds and events. Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz collaboratively create mesmerizing miniature snowbound environments, then record them in chilly color photographs. At first glance the work is playful; on closer observation, it often reveals darker narratives: Lone wanderers survey the frigid landscape, people and creatures exhibit unnatural tendencies and ill-defined crimes are committed. Martin & Munoz create the figures--either adapting ready-mades or shaping them out of clay--then paint and position them within the environments they also construct. The final compositions are then captured in photographs that are meticulously stitched and adjusted digitally for the final effect.
This new book, featuring an original short story by acclaimed author Jonathan Lethem, contains the very best of Martin & Munoz's most notable work, along with their newest series of panoramic narratives, for which they are already receiving accolades from the press--including a recent feature in The New York Times. Curator Dan Cameron has complimented the artists on their ability to juggle both visual and psychological charges: "At the same time that they produce riddle-like parables about modern existence, they do not shirk the artist's obligation to invent a new formulation of tactile and even sensual pleasure."
Walter Martin, born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1953 and Paloma Munoz, born in Madrid in 1965, have been professional and personal partners since 1993. They live in Dingmans Ferry, Pennsylvania and maintain a studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Their work is in the collections of many prominent institutions, including the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Miami Art Museum. The artists are represented by P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An excellent book for those with a dark sense of humor.
I saw this book at the SFMOMA bookstore, along with Little "People in the City: The Street Art of Slinkachu."I do feel a tad guilty about turning to amazon.com to purchase these books and not supporting the MOMA directly; I'm also curious if this effects the percentage the authors receive?That aside, I give top marks to amazon for offering these books as a pair, eerily intuitive folks!The books themselves are of excellent quality, the photos are beautiful.I shared these books with a number of people who all got a hearty laugh out of this style of miniature art.They arrived in good order as promised, thanks amazon!

Extraordinary Narrative Unrealism
I have been intrigued and captivated by the work of these artists for several years now.Their compositions are singularly unique -- unlike anything else.The images combine grand mystery and grand humor, but it is the viewer who is left to interpret what they say about the human condition.Wonderful! ... Read more

Product Description
L.J. Davis’s 1971 novel, A Meaningful Life, is a blistering black comedy about theAmerican quest for redemption through real estate and a gritty picture of New YorkCity in collapse. Just out of college, Lowell Lake, the Western-born hero of Davis’snovel, heads to New York, where he plans to make it big as a writer. Instead he findsa job as a technical editor, at which he toils away while passion leaks out of hismarriage to a nice Jewish girl. Then Lowell discovers a beautiful crumbling mansionin a crime-ridden section of Brooklyn, and against all advice, not to mention hiswife’s will, sinks his every penny into buying it. He quits his job, moves in, andspends day and night on demolition and construction. At last he has a mission: hewill dig up the lost history of his house; he will restore it to its past grandeur.He will make good on everything that’s gone wrong with his life, and he will evenmurder to do it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

neglected classic
Maybe yu have to be of a certain age to enjoy the humor, the lack of PC and the sheer good writing.
'A Meaningful Life' is about, among other things, the great American quest to fix things - ennui,neurosis, addiction, failing/failed marriages - by moving somewhere else and fixing something else.
I re-did (doesn't that sound better than 'gentrification'?) a Victorian house in the 70s. The frustration, the cultural clashes, the expense,the conflicts,the the Kafkaesque dealings with contractors, subs and building inspectors and the madness of it all rings hilariously true.
Davis is sort of a literary nephew, if not child of Nathanial West with a touch of Waugh to mellow it just a bit.
A hell of a book.
If it is not on your 'Best of the 20th Century' list you are wrong.

Pioneering in 1970's Brooklyn
Why is it we like Lowell Lake? He is hardly engaged in the world and seems to look down on all those he comes across as bizarre science experiments. Yet, we root for him and wish him every success as he struggles to find meaning in a life that has to this point largely just happened to him. Perhaps it is because he is finally taking the reigns and since he finds no reward in his work or his wife, we hope he will find something - anything. His wife, like most spouses, cuts quickly to the heart of his problem, saying, "That's just great. I can't tell you how that idea really grabs me. What do you think this is? The Jackie Gleason Show?... I have to travel three thousand miles and work my *** off for four years in order to marry a New York cab driver?... I don't believe it. I've never worn a house dress in my life. At least you could have said you wanted to be a riveter.... Riveters make good money and there'd be a nice little pension for me if you walked off a beam up there in the sky. I liked it better when you wanted to be a cowboy." So revealing regarding Lowell's lost boy persona.

The book also appealed because I love all things New York and am fascinated by the 1970's especially. Davis does a fantastic job communicating the social and economic forces of change taking place. Lowell's attempt to move from Manhattan to Brooklyn is almost voyeuristic. His encounters with the various characters are fun and I like to think accurate. The challenges that the renovation brings is at once pathetic, hopeful, and futile. The mansion he purchases and fixates on was built in the mid 19th century by a tycoon, Civil War hero, corporation lawyer, and adventurer. It is "the townhouse of Darius Collingwood, foremost corporation lawyer in the Northeastern United States," which impresses Lowell so much that his pursuit of the twenty-one-room Brooklyn structure becomes his quest and ultimately a pioneer outpost. The biography Davis invents for Darius Collingwood, seems so real and believable that I expect The Bowery Boy's New York History podcast to feature Collingwood.

This New York Book Review Classics edition has an introduction by Jonathan Lethem, author of Chronic City and The Fortress of Solitude. His connection to the author is one of those New York stories that is great unto itself. It is an entertaining read and has turned me onto Davis overall so I look forward to reading his other work.

Lost In Brooklyn
Some years ago I read Paula Fox's Desperate Characters.I liked it but thought it overated.A Meaningful Life has understandbly been compared to Fox's novel.I think it's the better book.It's funny and I enjoyed it.However it's not "that" good. I found it interesting that Davis was compared to Kingsley Amis.Amis is not in fashion now .He is a much funnier and more pointed writer than Davis.Davis' characters are wraiths .If Davis were as funny as Amis ,I might not find myself asking the question ,what is the point of this book? I have to say that is a question I seldomly ask butI couldn't escape the feeling that a book set in 1960 'sFort Greene(?) should have a point .There is somethingsly and evasive about this book .The fault may lie with the books amusing but pathetic protagonist.Lowell Lake is a complete jerk. His wife is a cypher .Issues of race and class are dealt with a great deal of irony and distance but I would say no depth and insufficient humor to makethe novel work as pure satire.Davis lacks Amis' evil wit and so the novel winds upbeing neither fish nor foul.I get the impression he largely gave up fiction after this to write polemics.I can see why.

Prickly Satire, Admirably Brief
Lowell Lake is a fellow devoid of drive or brilliance. He grows up in the middle of nowhere--Boise--where his parents run a ma-and-pa motel that caters to the local b-girls, as well as the occasional furtive and worried homosexual politician. Lowell is smart enough to get accepted by Stanford, circa 1956, but not clever enough for a scholarship. He writes to the local judge, asking for advice and help. The judge misreads the letter as a smooth blackmail note. He's been having uranian assignations at the motel for many years, and decides the motel owners' son must know all about them. So the judge tells Lowell he knows of an obscure scholarship fund, and for four years pays for Stanford out of pocket. Lowell is none the wiser.

Nor does he do anything smart or distinguished in Palo Alto, where he fills out an English major and settles in with a Jewish girl from Brooklyn. He knows nothing about Jews or Brooklyn, but it all sounds wonderfully exotic. When Lowell finally meets the parents, he is horrified. The fiancée's mother is a shrill, angry woman who won't look Lowell in the eye; the father is a tiny, meek fabric-cutter ("Call me Leo") who main conversational topic is his terror of "the negroes." Lowell's impulse is to run away--perhaps live as hermit in the desert. He gets as far as Donner Pass before deciding he doesn't really have that much courage.

And so the dreadful, bickering marriage begins: Lowell's wife slowly turning into her mother and accusing Lowell of being "weak" like her father, Lowell feebly attempting to rouse himself to something dynamic.

They were supposed to move to Berkeley and follow the grad-school path. Now Lowell decides to show his nerve by moving to New York. He has no idea what he'll do in New York--maybe drive a cab and write a novel. "That's just great," shrills the wife. "I have to travel three thousand miles and work my ass off for four years in order to marry a New York cab driver? I don't think you know how bizarre that really is."

All this covers the first quarter of the book, by far the best and most inventive part. Most of the rest describes, in grotesque and fetid detail, the vast 1880s Brooklyn mansion that Lowell buys and proposes to refurbish. The basic stage-set changes from Lowell's cramped apartment to the tumbledown slum-house, giving ample room for a wide new cast of characters. Unfortunately most of these new characters are interchangeable extras--conniving real estate men, bums, various sorts of squatters and lunatics, and an army of colored people who drink out of paper bags and harass Lowell on the street.

Lowell doesn't so much do things as have stuff happen to him. His wife leaves him--sort of: runs off to her mother's, comes back, runs off again, may be having an affair, possibly not. Lowell kills a bum with a crowbar, splattering the bum's brains over the front room, and then tossing the body into a dumpster. But even this massive development has no consequences.

Plot is not foremost in this story; it is perfunctory, a bulletin-board onto which the author tacks his comic turns and diversions. Lowell's in-laws and wife, and the vast cast of others, get to show up and clown around on stage without ever eliciting sympathy or having any impact on the plot. Another welcome diversion is the biography of Darius Collingwood, the tycoon and adventurer who originally built the Brooklyn mansion in the 1880s (but lived there for a scant six months), and whose life conflates every half-remembered Nineteen Century tale of Wall Street scandal and South American freebooting.

The book's point-of-view shifts throughout. Initially the narrator is omniscient, knowing all sorts of things that Lowell doesn't. Once Lowell settles in with his cartoony wife, the p-o-v becomes downright claustrophic, limited to an ever-narrowing range of Lowell's consciousness.

The imaginative world of the novel is frankly derived from pop culture, mainly TV ('The Honeymooners' is mentioned once) and comic strips (Lowell thinks he looks like Henry Tremblechin, the put-upon father of Little Iodine). The Darius Collingwood mansion, with its dozens of rooms and layers of squalor, is an underclass version of the old-timey funny-page settings of "Major Hoople's Boarding House," "Moon Mullins," or "Right Around Home with Myrtle."

Recently I was musing about what sort of book would be suitable for reading on a Kindle. I think this one would. It isn't long and it doesn't have any pictures. The people are all stock characters without depth ordetailed physical description (apart from Lowell, who is long, lean, and sandy-haired), so I never wanted to figure them out by drawing pictures of them in the margin. Neither did I feel prompted to scribble querulous notes and copyedit corrections. As a matter of fact, I didn't spot a single typo in the whole book. You won't find that kind of quality today.

"He was a nice guy"
The first hundred pages of this book are among the best and funniest written about the "domestic politics of exhaustion."Lowell Lake quietly and desperately employs passive resistance in the quotidian war with his wife.For her part, she throws away his clothes and his birth certificate, tells Lowell that she hates how he sits in a chair, manipulates him into moving closer to her parents and wields casual cruelty like a rapier.In one of his few moments of insight or enthusiasm, Lowell blurts out to his wife during their relocation to her home in New York that he is the first member of his family to cross back east over the Mississippi in over a hundred years.Her response: "Big deal."

Unfortunately, the second half of the book focuses less on his marriage in order to recount Lowell's attempt to create an identity by renovating a broken down home in Brooklyn.He makes a game attempt but Lowell Lake is a man who has no friends, can't catch a ball and has so little clue that he prefers Linda Thorsen to Diana Rigg on the Avengers.(How's that for an obscure pop cultural reference by Davis?) Lake's failed effort lifts him almost to the level of a tragic hero but the reader remembers him more as the man who wakes up at night and intones aloud, "I am not a nerd."

This a quick and very enjoyable book.Read it for the priceless portraits of Lake's in-laws and for the new level of meaning Lowell Lake's existence brings to the word "meaningful." ... Read more

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By the winner of the Hugo, the Nebula, and the World Fantasy Life Achievement Awards, this latest volume finds Theodore Sturgeon in fine form as he gains recognition for the first time as a literary short story writer. Written between 1957 and 1960, when Sturgeon and his family lived in both America and Grenada, finally settling in Woodstock, New York, these stories reflect his increasing preference for psychology over ray guns. Stories such as "The Man Who Told Lies," "A Touch of Strange," and "It Opens the Sky" show influences as diverse as William Faulkner and John Dos Passos. Always in touch with the zeitgeist, Sturgeon takes on the Russian Sputnik launches of 1957 with "The Man Who Lost the Sea," switching the scene to Mars and injecting his trademark mordancy and vivid wordplay into the proceedings. These mature stories also don't stint on the scares, as "The Graveyard Reader" - one of Boris Karloff's favorite stories - shows. Acclaimed novelist Jonathan Lethem's foreword neatly summarizes Sturgeon's considerable achievement here. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

One of the Best Writers Ever.
Many years ago I read the story "Killdozer" in an anthology book of some sort, and never forgot the story.I didn't know anything about the author, and had no idea that he wrote many more stories beyond the one I had had the opportunity to read.Then I stumbled across this series of books in Amazon, bought one, read it, loved it, and now have all ten volumes in my collection.

So here's my verdict: Theodore Sturgeon was not just one of the best writers of Science Fiction; he wasn't just one of the best writers of short stories.He was, one of the best writers ever, period.While the stories are cloaked in the veneer of science fiction, they are in fact, stories of deep insight into the human condition.You cannot read these volumes and not be touched, moved, and inspired.Don't miss the opportunity to read some of these wonderful stories.And if you're truly inspired, get the short novel More Than Human.

The next volume has been announced
It's Sept 2006, and I just spotted the following listed on the Locus site, scheduled for June 2007 release.I suppose this is good news, though it means I'm going to have to buy another bookcase.

Sturgeon, Theodore * When You Care, When You Love: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Volume XI * (North Atlantic, cln, hc)

Wonderful collection
This latest volume is again an excellent addition to the series.I just wish we would be able to find out what's going on with the rest of the books:this was originally supposed to be a ten volume collection but since this latest volume only goes through 1960, there is clearly more material to be collected.Some of the volumes are of shorter length then others, which also puzzles me.Material isn't being left out to keep down the page count?

In any case, stories like "The Graveyard Reader" show the sensitivity and skill that only a master like Sturgeon can convey in a short story.If you're already a fan, you know this; if not, buy the book.Sturgeon truly was one of the finest American short story writers ever. ... Read more

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Acclaimed in the art world for his room-size installations of paintings, sculpture, and digital projections, Matthew Ritchie’s work investigates architecture and the dynamics of culture. Named by Time magazine in 2001 as one of 100 innovators for the new millennium, his rich work draws from subjects as diverse as ancient myth and medieval alchemy to cutting-edge physics and contemporary politics. This artist-designed book will explore Ritchie’s large-scale artistic "interventions" in buildings designed by Morphosis among others, including the Guggenheim Museum and MIT. ... Read more

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Word count: 2662. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! JonathanAllen Lethem (born February 19, 1964) is anAmerican writer. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Lethemtrained to be an artist before moving to California and devoting his time to writing. His first novel,Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixedelements of science fiction and detective fiction,was published in 1994. It was followed by three morescience fiction novels. In 1999, Lethem publishedMotherless Brooklyn, a National Book Critics CircleAward-winning novel that achieved mainstreamsuccess. In 2003, he published The Fortress ofSolitude, which became a New York Times Best Seller.Lethem is also a prolific essayist and short storywriter. ... Read more

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Chapters: Anne Ramsey, Alan Arkin, Bret Easton Ellis, Andrea Dworkin, Tim Daly, Patricia Johanson, Jonathan Lethem, Bennington College, Sally Mann, Michael Pollan, Melissa Rosenberg, Carol Channing, Holland Taylor, Anne Waldman, Carolyn Cassady, Louis Calabro, Jr Mitchell, Mark Barnes, James Tenney, Jonathan Elias, Katharine Holabird, Virlana Tkacz, Peter Dinklage, Donna Tartt, Helen Frankenthaler, Nathalie Handal, Bessie Schonberg, List of Bennington College People, Kiran Desai, Liz Rosenberg, Barbara Howes, Richard Deacon, John Billingsley, Marian Zazeela, Mary Ruefle, Jonathan Marc Sherman, Doe Lang, Justin Theroux, Jared Paul Stern, Elizabeth Swados, Susan Crile, Lynn Emanuel, Sandra Hochman, Yasmin Aga Khan, Lucy Simon, Cynthia Macdonald, Myrna Blyth, Lincoln Schatz, Dinah Lenney, Jill Eisenstadt, Julia Randall, Melissa Marr, Robert Sedgwick, Niloufar Talebi, Cora Cohen, Alec Wilkinson, Bruce Berman, Reginald Shepherd, Marianna Pineda, Leslie Mcgrath, Will Stratton, Jovita Moore, Larry Atlas, Kathleen Norris, Marc Spitz, Liz Phillips, Amanda Urban, Amy Gerstler, Mohammed Naseehu Ali, Mary Early, Ellen Mcculloch-Lovell, Libby Zion. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 340. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Andrea Rita Dworkin (September 26, 1946April 9, 2005) was an American radical feminist and writer best known for her criticism of pornography, which she argued was linked to rape and other forms of violence against women. An anti-war activist and anarchist in the late 1960s, Dworkin wrote 10 books on radical feminist theory and practice. During the late 1970s and the 1980s, she gained national fame as a spokeswoman for the feminist anti-pornography movement, and for her writing on pornography and sexuality, particularly in Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1981) and Intercourse...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=22320587 ... Read more

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This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: The Fortress of Solitude, Gun, With Occasional Music, Motherless Brooklyn, Amnesia Moon, You Don't Love Me Yet, as She Climbed Across the Table, Chronic City. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: The Fortress of Solitude is a 2003 semi-autobiographical novel by Jonathan Lethem set in Brooklyn and spanning the 1970s, '80s, and '90s. It follows two teenage friends, Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude, one white and one black, who discover a magic ring. The novel explores the issues of race and culture, gentrification, self-discovery, and music. The Fortress of Solitude was the fictional abode and headquarters of Superman. Though his main residence was Metropolis, Fortress of Solitude was the only place Superman could truly be himself, as shown by the statues of Supermans Kryptonian parents that adorn the interior. In the novel, the Fortress of Solitude acts as a direct metaphor for Dean Street, Dylans childhood neighborhood. Though Dylan eventually went on to Camden College in Vermont and University of California, Berkeley, the Brooklyn neighborhood always remained his true home, much like Supermans Fortress of Solitude. Dean Street held the most meaning to Dylan as the last memory of his mother, the place where he first met Mingus, his shelter from the racial tensions of Brooklyn, and, in general, the street where he spent his entire childhood. Abraham Ebdus - Dylan's father, an avant-garde artist. After Rachel abandons the family, he only turns more introverted, shutting himself in the attic to paint his film, a masterpiece that will never be complete. In order to support himself and Dylan, he turns to painting garish covers for science fiction books and eventually becomes a big name in the field. The relationship between himse...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=2420990 ... Read more