King of the Jews: A Novel [Paperback]

Leslie, Epstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 17, 2004

King of the Jews tells the darkly humorous story of I. C. Trumpelman, a man whose fancy determines the fate of others. Chosen as the head of a Judenrat, Trumpelman thrives on the power granted him and creates an authoritarian regime of his own within the ghetto. By turns a con man, charismatic leader and merciless dictator, Trumpelman reveals himself as an extraordinarily complex protagonist. King of the Jews continues to be an extraordinary vision of occupied Poland, and offers stunning insight through the trappings of history to questions of equal moral complexity today.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Mature, brilliantly sustained, thoroughly engrossing." -- Newsweek

"Profoundly daring... Epstein can summon up life from the bottom of despair." -- The Boston Globe

"Remarkable. A lesson in what artistic restraint can do to help us imagine the dark places in our history." -- The New York Times Book Review

"The best book yet to be written on the Holocaust. A superb novel." -- San Francisco Chronicle

About the Author

Leslie Epstein, whose father and uncle Philip G. and Julius J. Epstein wrote Arsenic and Old Lace, Casablanca, and many other classics of the golden era of films, is the author of eight other works of fiction, including San Remo Drive, Pandaemonium and Pinto and Sons. He lives in Brookline, MA and has for many years directed the Creative Writing Program at Boston University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Other Press (February 17, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590510798
• ISBN-13: 978-1590510797
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 1 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #944,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A humorous and harrowing look at a holocaust ghetto-leader, December 4, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: King of the Jews (Norton Paperback Fiction) (Paperback)

It's rare to come across a book like this, which as Epstein brings out in his own review, brings a comical tone to an event of serious and tragic nature such as the holocaust. But in doing so, Epstein makes the characters much more alive, human and real. For instance, at one point, after the Jews had been transported to the ghetto and they must meet a work quota to eat, a rabbi presiding over a funeral has been deprived of his day's rations for failing to meet the quota. At the same time the funeral is being carried on, a few orphans of the orphanage which I.C. Trumpelman, who is "King of the Jews" presides over, are trying to smuggle a cow, the only one in the ghetto, out to some children more in need of its milk than themselves. In the process, the cow escapes and falls into the hole meant for the dead man, a once wealthy man, named Fiebig, who went crazy. The citizens try to think of ways to get the cow out, and the rabbi tells them to cut it up humanely and divide the meat between themselves. The citizens, of course, decide to get the cow out of the pit, so they can put the dead man in, and the rabbi finally comes up with, "Let's eat Fiebig and bury the cow." The book leaves the reader to make their own decsions on the morals at hand, much as the people who lived through it did, from the Judenrat members and their president, Trumpelman, who rides a messianic white horse in his daft idea of playing a greater Moses to his people, to the opposers of the Judenrat who dream of themselves as being allied with the Red Army and kidnap an American in hopes of his taking home news as to what is actually going on in the ghettos. I found nothing vulgar in the book other than what humans usually seem to be guilty of under such circumstances, in fact, I think there were only 4 curse words and no sex scenes. Just the same, the novel has a definite edge, as when the Judenrat members, which is a comittee of about 15 people who preside over law in the ghetto, must decide who first to send to the concentration camps, and find suicide is not an option. Trumpelman controls even that. I definitley recommend this for all and any who are looking for a book about the holocaust without the usual S&M tales of the gestapo agents with black and oiled leathered gloves, or more attention to the details of torturing and horror than to any of the people who lived through it, people much like us. It reminds me more, without giving away the ending, of how one feels when given an identity card of someone alive during the holocaust whose identity you take on, when entering the Washington DC Holocaust Museum, and it is only at the end of your tour, that you find out if they lived or died. But as you turn the pages of your passport, your identity, you never stop hoping.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Epstein makes us laugh, cry w/his ironic view of the tragidy, April 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: King of the Jews (Norton Paperback Fiction) (Paperback)

In 'King of the Jews', Epstein tells a captivating story of a doomed Polish Jewish Ghetto during WWII. The narrator makes us laugh and cry with his ironic view of the tragedy. It was daring of the author to break with tradition by allowing the reader to perceive WWII ghetto life with a sense of humor. By omitting the extremes of WWII horror, Epstein makes the story more believable without mitigating the tragedy. I could emphathize with the struggles yet did not perceive the Jews as victims. A great script for Mr. Spielberg!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful, visionary, epic., July 8, 2003

By 

wordtron (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: King of the Jews: A Novel (Paperback)

I came across Epstein's latest novel SAN REMO DRIVE in the new fiction section of the bookstore, and rather than pay hardcover price for a good read, I decided to see if the store had his backlist in stock, and came across this. Almost buried under a dozen highly laudatory blurbs, I decided to take a chance, and discovered a great work of literary art. Based on the Polish city of Lodz and the sort of puppet leader set up by the Nazis to govern/liaison the Jewish ghetto there, Epstein paints a teeming, vivid portrait of what it was like to live in the absurdity and morally ambiguous maze of the ghetto. With a grand cast of quickly drawn yet practically breathing-at-your-side characters, dark, dark humor and a consistently paced torrent of words that captures the nearly Bosch-like space of this harrowing, unbelievable and dastardly experience, I feverishly followed the rise and fall of what becomes an archetypal Jewish ghetto existence, if you can call it that. The best thing about it all is the lack of moralizing and judgement-making. Epstein just shows it like it is -- even though, thankfully, it is a thing that was. Historical. Hopefully. And lastly, but not leastly, I'm going to have to shell out hardcover cash to read his latest.