The Tenants of Moonbloom (New York Review Books Classics) [Paperback]

Edward Lewis Wallant (Author), Dave Eggers (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 2003 | Series: New York Review Books Classics

Norman Moonbloom is a loser, a drop-out who can't even make it as a deadbeat. His brother, a slumlord, hires him to collect rent in the buildings he owns in Manhattan. Making his rounds from apartment to apartment, Moonbloom confronts a wildly varied assortment of brilliantly described urban characters, among them a gay jazz musician with a sideline as a gigolo, a Holocaust survivor, and a brilliant young black writer modeled on James Baldwin. Moonbloom hears their cries of outrage and abuse; he learns about their secret sorrows and desires. And as he grows familiar with their stories, he finds that he is drawn, in spite of his best judgment, into a desperate attempt to improve their lives.

Edward Lewis Wallant's astonishing comic tour de force is a neglected masterpiece of 1960s America.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"…a remarkable tour de force in which this gifted writer takes the elements of several “Street Scenes,” and spins them faster and faster like a deranged merry—go—round." —Martin Levin, New York Times Book Review

"No one since Nathanael West has written better of the rootlessness of metropolitan life. West is a writer whom Wallant resembles not only in his untimely death after early brilliant promise, but for his special Jewish sensibility and…profound moral concern…" —Time

About the Author

Edward Lewis Wallant (1926-1962) won critical acclaim for his novels The Human Season and The Pawnbroker, which was made into the first American film to portray the inside of the Nazi death camps. After Wallant’s untimely death, an annual award was created in his name to honor an outstanding work of fiction that “has significance for the American Jew.”

Dave Eggers is the editor of McSweeney’s and the author of three books: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; You Shall Know Our Velocity, a novel; and Visitants, a collection of short stories. He lives in California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: NYRB Classics; New edition edition (November 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590170709
• ISBN-13: 978-1590170700
• Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #749,806 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars lyrical, musical, surprisingly earthy, February 16, 2004

By 

Jesse Berrett (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Tenants of Moonbloom (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

Wallant takes a fairly common premise--Norman Moonbloom works as an agent for his brother Irving's tenements, popping into and out of the tenants' lives to collect the rent--and makes it into an effective and moving vision of moral and social dislocation. There are elderly Holocaust survivors, stoned jazzbos, a young married couple, an od married couple, old cranks, a horny young Chinese-American guy, even a James Baldwin character, all of whom seem somehow marooned and desperate for Norman's attentions. Wallant presents each of them with grace and economy, sketching a vision of early-60s NYC that's somehow cheering despite the pervasive despair. By turns lyrical and earthy, this novel is wonderfully thought-provoking as an allegory (is Norman a Christ figure?) and equally enthralling as a minutely-noted tour through a vanished city.

14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An unknown masterpiece, March 10, 2000

By 

Rob (Olympia, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Tenants of Moonbloom (Paperback)

Readers will not be able to comprehend that something so profoundly written has not been reckognized into mainstream literature. I've never seen so many beautiful, exact and vivid sentences compacted into one work. The story is humorous and emotional, while striking into the heart of universal themes and characterization. Wallant should be considered as great of a writer as Faulkner or Melville.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A little-known masterpiece, December 11, 2006

By 

Jonathan Groner (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Tenants of Moonbloom (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

Before picking up this book to read for a book group discussion, I had only vaguely heard of Wallant. I now see what I had been missing. Had he lived, Wallant would have found a significant place in 20th-century American literature.

Having read the book, I am convinced that Wallant was an American original with a distinctive voice. Not much happens in The Tenants of Moonbloom. Most of the action is interior to the characters, who are living their days in quiet desperation. Wallant is able to show humanity as it is -- no retouching here -- without succumbing to cynicism. He cares deeply for all his characters, with all their flaws and errors.

At the center of the action is Norman Moonbloom, who finds a secular religion and acts upon it. He is one of the more unforgettable characters whom I have encountered.