Savagely funny....Never was Jewish wit put to better or more urgent use."—Chicago Tribune, a Favorite Book of 2001 Blind, homosexual, Russian émigré speechwriter Nathan Kazakov has enough problems even before his left ear is obliterated by a bullet presumably meant for the Israeli prime minister. Determined to solve the mystery, Nathan begins exploring a web of conspiracies involving messianic orthodox settlers, Arab terrorists, and the Israeli secret service. Was the bullet intended for Nathan after all? or perhaps for the prime minister's son Gabriel, an archaeologist who shuns his father's politics? One trail leads to Leviticus, another beneath the Temple Mount. Strange Fire is "a stunning literary achievement" (Miami Herald) fueled by Bukiet's singular imagination. A Washington Post Book World 2001 Rave, a Chicago Tribune Favorite Book of the Year, and a Booklist Editors' Choice. "Corrupt, violent, zigzagging atmosphere...a raucous vituperative attack on every kind of political hypocrisy."—Los Angeles Times Book Review
In 1945 the Allied forces are trekking across Europe, pausing incidentally to free the Jews from Hitler's camps. Newly emerged from the ashes, three ex-prisoners-a logician, a saint, and a schemer-come toghether. Led by nineteen-year-old Isaac Kaufman, this trio joins forces in survival to exploit the only industry up and running in a crippled German town, the black market-until they discover and decide to steal a four-foot cube:"Eighteen tons of golden ingots created from fillings pried from the teeth of the Jews of Eastern Europe.
The wicked exploits of an assortment of louts and losers occupy Melvin Jules Bukiet's profligate imagination in these delectable stories. The title of Melvin Jules Bukiet's latest collection hints at the deceitful nature of its multiple protagonists. An aspiring writer stalks Vladmir Nabokov across midtown Manhattan one afternoon in the summer of Watergate. A young co-ed's seduction of her elderly philosophy professor delivers her an A and him lasting happiness. Max, "a liar and a voyeur, like any true artist," wanders the East Village taking photographs of murder victims. A famous Holocaust survivor "with the big eyes and the big prize" conducts an impromptu circumcision. Ranging from 1895 Prague to the site of a Central American rebellion to the home of a certain Seattle software magnate to the roof of an urban skyscraper, each of these outrageous (though occasionally tender) stories offers keen insight into human nature.
In this fast-paced adventure story, Timothy and Jessamyn are towed through the streets of Manhattan riding in Timothy’s family’s sailboat, on their way to the Long Island shore, when the boat comes unhitched from its truck. The teens “sail” backward down a hill in Upper Manhattan, then fall down a huge construction site hole and into the vast sewer system below. Thrust into an amazing adventure, the kids navigate waterfalls and rapids as they travel through the rain sewers. They meet a graffiti artist their own age, a homeless person named You, and rats the size of large dogs. They fall into the hands of a gangster who claims the sewers as her kingdom and the homeless as her subjects, and acts as a fence for luxury goods! Will she feed Timothy and Jessamyn to the rats? UPraise for Undertown/u "Two suburban teens ride a sailboat into Manhattan’s storm drains and meet quirky residents aplenty." —Kirkus Reviews "It’s a coming-of-age escapade with a sense of wonder, and Bukiet pays homage to the history and mysteries of NYC with a writing style that’s part sentimental, part poetic, and part tongue-in-cheek.” —Publishers Weekly "This classic hero’s journey is set against the detailed backdrop of New York City, both above ground and below." —Booklist
In late 1999, in the midst of a brutal hurricane on the Baltic coast, a concrete prison barge rips free of its moorings. Of thousands of Europe's most dangerous criminals, only the twelve depraved souls in cell block 306 survive. One of the twelve is their Savior. As word spreads of the Second Coming, some think the "Messiah" is a fraud, some think he is deluded, and many, with a deep need to believe, do so. The new messiah must meet the press, the lawyers, the cops, and the swindlers, all of them vying for a piece of the action en route to the only place a modern Second Coming would occur--a theme park ruled by a rodent--as the celestial clock ticks down to '00. Rife on the surface with Bukiet's trademark black humor and rage toward a malevolent God, Signs and Wonders seethes with incisive and courageous commentary on history, religious faith, and mankind at the end of this century.
In Stories of an Imaginary Childhood Melvin Jules Bukiet inscribes the world that might have been his own if not for the catastrophe that destroyed most of Jewish life in eastern Europe during the 1940s. Set before the Holocaust in the tiny Polish shtetl of Proszowice, each interconnected story follows the young protagonist through the pleasures and humiliations of childhood and the rites of manhood, as he fights against historical, social, and psychological forces that threaten to pull him down. "Bukiet proves that he is an expert at the [short story] form. His stories lift and soar, encompassing a world of truth in just a few pages. His characters have flesh and life. . . . Bukiet's topics are varied and universal: first love, growing up, trying to get along with people who are different. Each of these is approached with great humor and a deep respect for life experience."--Daniel Neman, Richmond News Leader "Jewish-American fiction of a new order, one able to bring the best that has been thought and said about voice and literary texture to the service of a world with richer meaning and a deeper resonance."--Sanford Pinsker, Midstream "Bukiet is enchanting, original, and thoroughly irresistible in any disguise. Stories of an Imaginary Childhood is an extraordinary achievement, an immensely enjoyable collection of truly remarkable tales."--Susan Miron, Miami Herald
Who killed Eric Davenport? A senior mathematics professor at Underhill College has been found dead in his office, the victim of murder. At Underhill, a small liberal arts college with a pricy tuition and a pampered student body, all of the students are close to their professors. But at least one loved Eric Davenport in a deeply inappropriate fashion. Some hated him. And then there is the faculty at war with itself. And the idiotic administration. And the twin boys who live next to campus. And what’s with all those praying mantises? The collective work of Sarah Lawrence writing class 3303 - R, taught by novelist Melvin Jules Bukiet, here is a send-up of contemporary campus life that is also the latest installment in an inglorious literary tradition of wacky fun. And the mayhem hasn’t stopped. Soon, a student is found dead in the library, and, from the quad to the dorms, crime scenes and crises begin to multiply. A wealthy alumni donor becomes alarmed. Enter a libidinous medical examiner. Depicting rampant insecurities and raging egos, and with a cast of characters from conflicted faculty to student cliques, from hemp kids to Ugg girls and the J Crew crew, Naked Came the Post-Postmodernist takes us on a journey some may find eerily familiar. . . . Already featured in the New York Times (“A Whodunit Committed by a Whole Classroom”), this first example of collegiate episodic experimental fiction is certain to draw wide attention on publication.
Savagely funny....Never was Jewish wit put to better or more urgent use."—Chicago Tribune, a Favorite Book of 2001 Blind, homosexual, Russian émigré speechwriter Nathan Kazakov has enough problems even before his left ear is obliterated by a bullet presumably meant for the Israeli prime minister. Determined to solve the mystery, Nathan begins exploring a web of conspiracies involving messianic orthodox settlers, Arab terrorists, and the Israeli secret service. Was the bullet intended for Nathan after all? or perhaps for the prime minister's son Gabriel, an archaeologist who shuns his father's politics? One trail leads to Leviticus, another beneath the Temple Mount. Strange Fire is "a stunning literary achievement" (Miami Herald) fueled by Bukiet's singular imagination. A Washington Post Book World 2001 Rave, a Chicago Tribune Favorite Book of the Year, and a Booklist Editors' Choice. "Corrupt, violent, zigzagging atmosphere...a raucous vituperative attack on every kind of political hypocrisy."—Los Angeles Times Book Review
In this fast-paced adventure story, Timothy and Jessamyn are towed through the streets of Manhattan riding in Timothy’s family’s sailboat, on their way to the Long Island shore, when the boat comes unhitched from its truck. The teens “sail” backward down a hill in Upper Manhattan, then fall down a huge construction site hole and into the vast sewer system below. Thrust into an amazing adventure, the kids navigate waterfalls and rapids as they travel through the rain sewers. They meet a graffiti artist their own age, a homeless person named You, and rats the size of large dogs. They fall into the hands of a gangster who claims the sewers as her kingdom and the homeless as her subjects, and acts as a fence for luxury goods! Will she feed Timothy and Jessamyn to the rats? UPraise for Undertown/u "Two suburban teens ride a sailboat into Manhattan’s storm drains and meet quirky residents aplenty." —Kirkus Reviews "It’s a coming-of-age escapade with a sense of wonder, and Bukiet pays homage to the history and mysteries of NYC with a writing style that’s part sentimental, part poetic, and part tongue-in-cheek.” —Publishers Weekly "This classic hero’s journey is set against the detailed backdrop of New York City, both above ground and below." —Booklist
In Stories of an Imaginary Childhood Melvin Jules Bukiet inscribes the world that might have been his own if not for the catastrophe that destroyed most of Jewish life in eastern Europe during the 1940s. Set before the Holocaust in the tiny Polish shtetl of Proszowice, each interconnected story follows the young protagonist through the pleasures and humiliations of childhood and the rites of manhood, as he fights against historical, social, and psychological forces that threaten to pull him down. "Bukiet proves that he is an expert at the [short story] form. His stories lift and soar, encompassing a world of truth in just a few pages. His characters have flesh and life. . . . Bukiet's topics are varied and universal: first love, growing up, trying to get along with people who are different. Each of these is approached with great humor and a deep respect for life experience."--Daniel Neman, Richmond News Leader "Jewish-American fiction of a new order, one able to bring the best that has been thought and said about voice and literary texture to the service of a world with richer meaning and a deeper resonance."--Sanford Pinsker, Midstream "Bukiet is enchanting, original, and thoroughly irresistible in any disguise. Stories of an Imaginary Childhood is an extraordinary achievement, an immensely enjoyable collection of truly remarkable tales."--Susan Miron, Miami Herald
The wicked exploits of an assortment of louts and losers occupy Melvin Jules Bukiet's profligate imagination in these delectable stories. The title of Melvin Jules Bukiet's latest collection hints at the deceitful nature of its multiple protagonists. An aspiring writer stalks Vladmir Nabokov across midtown Manhattan one afternoon in the summer of Watergate. A young co-ed's seduction of her elderly philosophy professor delivers her an A and him lasting happiness. Max, "a liar and a voyeur, like any true artist," wanders the East Village taking photographs of murder victims. A famous Holocaust survivor "with the big eyes and the big prize" conducts an impromptu circumcision. Ranging from 1895 Prague to the site of a Central American rebellion to the home of a certain Seattle software magnate to the roof of an urban skyscraper, each of these outrageous (though occasionally tender) stories offers keen insight into human nature.
Who killed Eric Davenport? A senior mathematics professor at Underhill College has been found dead in his office, the victim of murder. At Underhill, a small liberal arts college with a pricy tuition and a pampered student body, all of the students are close to their professors. But at least one loved Eric Davenport in a deeply inappropriate fashion. Some hated him. And then there is the faculty at war with itself. And the idiotic administration. And the twin boys who live next to campus. And what’s with all those praying mantises? The collective work of Sarah Lawrence writing class 3303 - R, taught by novelist Melvin Jules Bukiet, here is a send-up of contemporary campus life that is also the latest installment in an inglorious literary tradition of wacky fun. And the mayhem hasn’t stopped. Soon, a student is found dead in the library, and, from the quad to the dorms, crime scenes and crises begin to multiply. A wealthy alumni donor becomes alarmed. Enter a libidinous medical examiner. Depicting rampant insecurities and raging egos, and with a cast of characters from conflicted faculty to student cliques, from hemp kids to Ugg girls and the J Crew crew, Naked Came the Post-Postmodernist takes us on a journey some may find eerily familiar. . . . Already featured in the New York Times (“A Whodunit Committed by a Whole Classroom”), this first example of collegiate episodic experimental fiction is certain to draw wide attention on publication.
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