When Henry Roth published his debut novel Call It Sleep in 1934, it was greeted with considerable critical acclaim though, in those troubled times, lackluster sales. Only with its paperback publication thirty years later did this novel receive the recognition it deserves-- --and still enjoys. Having sold-to-date millions of copies worldwide," Call It Sleep" is the magnificent story of David Schearl, the " dangerously imaginative" child coming of age in the slums of New York.
Henry Roth went to sleep for the last time on the evening of October 13, 1995, but not before completing this transcendent novel, which continues "one of the most poignant projects in American literature." As Tolstoy presaged his own passing in The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Roth examines his own imminent death in the most lyrical of ways, telling the story of the elderly writer, Ira Stigman, who in spite of his physical frailties, finds solace and redemption through the re-creation of the fascinating love triangle of his youth. Capturing the dizzying vitality of the 1920s and the literary world of Manhattan, Roth has set the stage for one of the most memorable literary romances of this century.
Written in the last year of Roth's life, this is the impassioned story of a young man's love affair with literature, and with his teacher. As Ira Stigman turns from his incestuous childhood affairs, he finds himself competing with his best friend for the attention of their literature professor. FROM BONDAGE is the the moving culmination of a great writer's life.
In the concluding book in this extraordinary, four-volume spiritual and literary odyssey, Roth tells the psychologically lacerating story of Ira Stigman, a senior at City College, who falls in love with Edith Welles, NYU professor and muse of modern poets.
Painting a grand panorama of New York City in the Roaring Twenties, Henry Roth once again draws us into the adolescent world of Ira Stigman. Through this absorbing narrative, Roth evokes a bygone- a time of innocence shadowed by forbidden experience, for Ira's fateful story is that of a tormented teenager doomed to near madness by the twisted, violent urges within his own heart. So intense and consuming is a secret carried by the young Ira that it can only be revealed by the old man, seventy years later, in streams of cathartic torrents that free him from the shackles of his past.
This "landmark of the American literary century" (Boston Globe) is finally published as one volume, appearing with a brilliant new introduction. Sixty years after the publication of his great modernist masterpiece, Call It Sleep, Henry Roth, a retired waterfowl farmer already in his late eighties, shocked the literary world with the announcement that he had written a second novel. It was called, he reported, Mercy of a Rude Stream, the title inspired by Shakespeare, and it followed the travails of one Ira Stigman, whose family had just moved to New York’s Jewish Harlem in that "ominous summer of 1914." "It is like hearing that…J. D. Salinger is preparing a sequel to The Catcher in the Rye," the New York Times Book Review pronounced, while Vanity Fair extolled Roth's new work as "the literary comeback of the century." Even more astonishing was that Roth had not just written a second novel but a total of four chronologically linked works, all part of Mercy of a Rude Stream. Dying in 1995 at the age of eighty-nine, Roth would not live to see the final two volumes of this tetralogy published, yet the reappearance of Mercy of a Rude Stream, a fulfillment of Roth's wish that these installments appear as one complete volume, allows for a twenty-first-century public to reappraise this late-in-life masterpiece, just as Call it Sleep was rediscovered by a new generation in 1964. As the story unfolds, we follow the turbulent odyssey of Ira, along with his extended Jewish family, friends, and lovers, from the outbreak of World War I through his fateful decision to move into the Greenwich Village apartment of his muse and older lover, the seductive but ultimately tragic NYU professor Edith Welles. Set in both the fractured world of Jewish Harlem and the bohemian maelstrom of the Village, Mercy of a Rude Stream echoes Nabokov in its portrayal of sexual deviance, and offers a harrowing and relentless family drama amid a grand panorama of New York City in the 1910s and Roaring 20s. Yet in spite of a plot that is fraught with depictions of menace, violence, and intense self-loathing, Mercy of a Rude Stream also contains a cathartic, even redemptive, overlay as "provocative as anything in the chapters of St. Augustine" (Los Angeles Times), in which an elder Ira, haunted by the sins of his youth, communes with his computer, Ecclesias, as he recalls how his family's traditional piety became corrupted by the inexorable forces of modernity. As Ira finally decides to get "the hell out of Harlem," his Proustian act of recollection frees him from the ravages of old age, and suddenly he is in his prime again, the entire telling of Mercy his final pronouncement. Mercy of a Rude Stream is that rare work of fiction that creates, through its style and narration, a new form of art. Indeed, the two juxtaposed voices—one of the "little boys swimming in a sea of glory," the other of one of those same boys "in old age being rudely swept to sea"—creates a counterpoint, jarring yet oddly harmonious, that makes this prophetic American work such an lasting statement on the frailties of memory and the essence of human consciousness. Mercy of a Rude Stream: The Complete Novels includes A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park, A Diving Rock on the Hudson, From Bondage, and Requiem for Harlem.
Since 1989, Henry Roth has been Principal of a Therapeutic Day School in Chicago with a highly diverse student population from all ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic levels, including Orthodox Jewish students. All of these students had been transferred from their local public, private, or parochial schools due to emotional and behavioral problems. Henry had the opportunity to spend time conversing with students who were sent to "time-out" for various misbehaviors at school. TALES FROM TIME-OUT is a collection of vignettes relating some of the more memorable exchanges that Henry had in his conversations with students in time-out, followed by a brief overview of some of the background issues of the students' unique circumstances. A section is included that offers some strategies for dealing with children in time-out situations. TALES FROM TIME-OUT appeals to a diverse audience of parents and professionals -- but also to anyone who believes in the healing power of humor.
Henry Roth went to sleep for the last time on the evening of October 13, 1995, but not before completing this transcendent novel, which continues "one of the most poignant projects in American literature." As Tolstoy presaged his own passing in The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Roth examines his own imminent death in the most lyrical of ways, telling the story of the elderly writer, Ira Stigman, who in spite of his physical frailties, finds solace and redemption through the re-creation of the fascinating love triangle of his youth. Capturing the dizzying vitality of the 1920s and the literary world of Manhattan, Roth has set the stage for one of the most memorable literary romances of this century.
Set in New York in 1914, 14-year-old Ira Stigman and his extended family must contend with the impact of war on themselves and their homelands. But Ira has other issues to contend with - sexuality, the racism of his peers, a bullying and failed father, and the search for his own identity.
A landmark of the American literary century' Boston Globe Sixty years after the publication of his great modernist masterpiece, Call It Sleep, Henry Roth returned with Mercy of a Rude Stream - a sequence of four internationally-acclaimed epic novels of immigrant life in early-twentieth century New York. The second novel in the internationally acclaimed six-volume sequence which began with MERCY OF A RUDE STREAM. Ira Stigman, now an adolescent in 1920s New York, is on the rack. All his friends seem to be paragons of achievement and sophistication, while his own life bears the taint of an impoverished immigrant background. Work on the trolleycars and selling soda at Yankee Stadium introduces him to an underworld of corruption and petty thieving, and all his choices seem to be the wrong ones. Worst of all, within his own family exists a temptation so dark that it has corroded Ira's very soul. A DIVING ROCK ON THE HUDSON is fearless in its depiction of a young man in the lower depths, yet in its glimpses of redemption it offers hope with the power of literature as a force for comprehension and forgiveness. 'The literary comeback of the century' Vanity Fair 'As unquenchably vibrant with life as the immigrants whose existence it commemorates' Sunday Times 'A dynamic and moving event . . . a stirring portrait of a vanished culture . . . a poignant chapter in the life-drama of a unique American writer' Newsweek 'Although it is sixty years since a new novel by Mr Roth last hit the bookshelves, it has been worth the wait' The Economist 'Fresh and touching' Wall Street Journal 'A precision of detail which brings the sounds from the tenements, the heat of the sidewalk steaming off the pages' Sunday Express 'A meticulous evocation of a now-distant episode of the American experience' New York Times Book Review Mercy of a Rude Stream: The Complete Novels includes 1) A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park 2) A Diving Rock on the Hudson 3) From Bondage 4) Requiem for Harlem.
Henry Roth went to sleep for the last time on the evening of October 13, 1995, but not before completing this transcendent novel, which continues "one of the most poignant projects in American literature." As Tolstoy presaged his own passing in The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Roth examines his own imminent death in the most lyrical of ways, telling the story of the elderly writer, Ira Stigman, who in spite of his physical frailties, finds solace and redemption through the re-creation of the fascinating love triangle of his youth. Capturing the dizzying vitality of the 1920s and the literary world of Manhattan, Roth has set the stage for one of the most memorable literary romances of this century.
Painting a grand panorama of New York City in the Roaring Twenties, Henry Roth once again draws us into the adolescent world of Ira Stigman. Through this absorbing narrative, Roth evokes a bygone- a time of innocence shadowed by forbidden experience, for Ira's fateful story is that of a tormented teenager doomed to near madness by the twisted, violent urges within his own heart. So intense and consuming is a secret carried by the young Ira that it can only be revealed by the old man, seventy years later, in streams of cathartic torrents that free him from the shackles of his past.
Henry Roth spent sixteen years as Principal of a Therapeutic Day School with a highly diverse student population from all socioeconomic levels, including Orthodox Jewish students. All of these students had been transferred from their local public, private, or parochial schools due to emotional and behavioral problems. Henry had the opportunity to spend time conversing with students who were sent to "time-out" for various misbehaviors at school. TALES FROM TIME-OUT is a collection of vignettes relating some of the more memorable exchanges that Henry had in his conversations with students in time-out, followed by a brief overview of some of the background issues of the students' unique circumstances. A section is included that offers some strategies for dealing with children in time-out situations. TALES FROM TIME-OUT appeals to a diverse audience of parents and professionals -- but also to anyone who believes in the healing power of humor.
A landmark of the American literary century' Boston Globe Sixty years after the publication of his great modernist masterpiece, Call It Sleep, Henry Roth returned with Mercy of a Rude Stream - a sequence of four internationally-acclaimed epic novels of immigrant life in early-twentieth century New York. In Henry Roth's extraordinary novel we are introduced to Ira Stigman and his dazzlingly-evoked immigrant world of New York's Jewish Harlem. It is 1914 and the news of the outbreak of war is the first of many events to impinge on Ira's life and that of his family. Here is a boy struggling with racism, with his raging and unpredictable father, with the unsettling emergence of sexuality and with a world in the grip of momentous change. 'The literary comeback of the century' Vanity Fair 'As unquenchably vibrant with life as the immigrants whose existence it commemorates' Sunday Times 'A dynamic and moving event . . . a stirring portrait of a vanished culture . . . a poignant chapter in the life-drama of a unique American writer' Newsweek 'Although it is sixty years since a new novel by Mr Roth last hit the bookshelves, it has been worth the wait' The Economist 'Fresh and touching' Wall Street Journal 'A precision of detail which brings the sounds from the tenements, the heat of the sidewalk steaming off the pages' Sunday Express 'A meticulous evocation of a now-distant episode of the American experience' New York Times Book Review Mercy of a Rude Stream: The Complete Novels includes 1) A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park 2) A Diving Rock on the Hudson 3) From Bondage 4) Requiem for Harlem.
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A landmark of the American literary century' Boston Globe Sixty years after the publication of his great modernist masterpiece, Call It Sleep, Henry Roth returned with Mercy of a Rude Stream - a sequence of four internationally-acclaimed epic novels of immigrant life in early-twentieth century New York. The second novel in the internationally acclaimed six-volume sequence which began with MERCY OF A RUDE STREAM. Ira Stigman, now an adolescent in 1920s New York, is on the rack. All his friends seem to be paragons of achievement and sophistication, while his own life bears the taint of an impoverished immigrant background. Work on the trolleycars and selling soda at Yankee Stadium introduces him to an underworld of corruption and petty thieving, and all his choices seem to be the wrong ones. Worst of all, within his own family exists a temptation so dark that it has corroded Ira's very soul. A DIVING ROCK ON THE HUDSON is fearless in its depiction of a young man in the lower depths, yet in its glimpses of redemption it offers hope with the power of literature as a force for comprehension and forgiveness. 'The literary comeback of the century' Vanity Fair 'As unquenchably vibrant with life as the immigrants whose existence it commemorates' Sunday Times 'A dynamic and moving event . . . a stirring portrait of a vanished culture . . . a poignant chapter in the life-drama of a unique American writer' Newsweek 'Although it is sixty years since a new novel by Mr Roth last hit the bookshelves, it has been worth the wait' The Economist 'Fresh and touching' Wall Street Journal 'A precision of detail which brings the sounds from the tenements, the heat of the sidewalk steaming off the pages' Sunday Express 'A meticulous evocation of a now-distant episode of the American experience' New York Times Book Review Mercy of a Rude Stream: The Complete Novels includes 1) A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park 2) A Diving Rock on the Hudson 3) From Bondage 4) Requiem for Harlem.
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