Customer Reviews

Mercy of a Rude Stream Volume 1 (v. 1)

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This is the first volume of four, depicting the fictionalized journey of Henry Roth, one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century (known for CALL IT SLEEP). This volume covers just a few years of "Ira's" boyhood on the Lower East Side of New York and then in Harlem (what was the Jewish part, then the Irish part). The boyhood passages are intermittently enhanced with sections on the writer six (yes, six) decades later, at his computer, Eclesias, in the Southwest. Every single detail rings so true, one thinks one is reading autobiography, but in a brilliant stroke, which I won't describe here, so as not to spoil it for the reader, Roth makes clear that he has used what is true to create a spell-binding fiction. As a fiction writer myself, I am easily bored and disgusted with what is published today, but this was a glorious read. For anyone interested in New York City, in Jewish culture, in the making of a writer, this novel is essential. I slowed down at the end because I didn't want to be done. Thankfully, I have Volume II now to read, A DIVING ROCK ON THE HUDSON (as well as Volumes III and IV).