The Prince of West End Avenue by Alan Isler
In the Emma Lazarus retirement home in uptown Manhattan, the Jewish inmates embark on a chaotic, bitchy production of Hamlet. Comedy and tragedy combine as our hero, Otto Korner, directs his quirky, libidinous fellow residents in the play and looks back over his adventures in Germany, Zurich, (where he met Lenin and inadvertently invented Dada), Auschwitz and America. Winner of the National Jewish Book Award and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
A masterpiece -- Hugo Barnacle * Independent *
Alan Isler's novel has been compared with the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Saul Bellow.. Can it possibly live up to such praise? It can, it does -- Anita Brookner * Spectator *
Masterly, imaginative and provocatively disturbing in its effortless transitions between the comic and the tragic -- Geoffrey Elborn * Guardian *
Hilariously funny...a wonderful acheivement. Not since the heyday of Bellow and Heller has language been used to such good effect, at once hilarious and profoundly humane. Not since Malamud have comedy and tragedy and pathos and romance come together so effortlessly -- Gabriel Josipovici * Jewish Quarterly *
Poignant, comic and delightfully clever * Observer *
Alan Isler's novel has been compared with the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Saul Bellow.. Can it possibly live up to such praise? It can, it does -- Anita Brookner * Spectator *
Masterly, imaginative and provocatively disturbing in its effortless transitions between the comic and the tragic -- Geoffrey Elborn * Guardian *
Hilariously funny...a wonderful acheivement. Not since the heyday of Bellow and Heller has language been used to such good effect, at once hilarious and profoundly humane. Not since Malamud have comedy and tragedy and pathos and romance come together so effortlessly -- Gabriel Josipovici * Jewish Quarterly *
Poignant, comic and delightfully clever * Observer *
Alan Isler was born in London in 1834. His first novel, The Prince of West End Avenue, was acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic. In America it won the National Jewish Book Award and was one of the five fiction nominees for the 1994 National Book Critics Circle Award. In Britain it won the Jewish Quarterly Fiction Award. He is also the author of the novels, Kraven Images and Clerical Errors, and a collection of novellas, The Bacon Fancier.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780099701514 |
| ISBN 10 | 0099701510 |
| Title | The Prince of West End Avenue |
| Author | Alan Isler |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Vintage Publishing |
| Year published | 1996-04-04 |
| Number of pages | 256 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |