roth's Award-winning First Book Instantly Established Its Author's Reputation As A Writer Of Explosive Wit, Merciless Insight, And A Fierce Compassion For Even The Most Self-deluding Of His Characters.
goodbye, Columbus Is The Story Of Neil Klugman And Pretty, Spirited Brenda Patimkin, He Of Poor Newark, She Of Suburban Short Hills, Who Meet One Summer Break And Dive Into An Affair That Is As Much About Social Class And Suspicion As It Is About Love. The Novella Is Accompanied By Five Short Stories That Range In Tone From The Iconoclastic To The Astonishingly Tender And That Illuminate The Subterranean Conflicts Between Parents And Children And Friends And Neighbors In The American Jewish Diaspora.

following The Recent Release Of Roth's Vitriolic Novel, I Married A Communist (also Produced Unabridged From Dove, With Ron Silver Reading), It's Refreshing To Hear His Most Playful Early Material Revisited. The Title Novel And Accompanying Stories Are Read By A List Of Top-notch Performers. The Title Story, The Coming-of-age Tale Of Newark's Neil Klugman, Is Read By John Rubinstein. Set In 1950s America, The Idealistic College Dropout Klugman Spends A Summer Wooing Brenda Patimkin, An Affluent Radcliffe Girl From The Nearby Suburb Of Short Hills. Their Gentle Courtship Is Disrupted By Issues Of Class, Religion And Sex. The Other Stories, Which Include The Conversion Of The Jews And You Can't Tell A Man By The Song He Sings, Are Read By Rubinstein, Jerry Zaks, Harlan Ellison, Elliott Gould And Theodore Bikel. All Do A Good Job Of Conveying Roth's Sardonic Humor, Which--even In This Younger Work--has A World-weary, Sorrowful Weightiness. But The True Gift Demonstrated Here Is Roth's Amazing Deadpan Wit, A Quality Exploited To Dramatic Ends When Read Aloud By The Adroit Veterans Employed. (feb.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Categories:

• Religion & Spirituality
  
  
  • Literature & Fiction
    • Jewish