"Charyn skillfully breathes life into historical icons." —New YorkerJ.D. Salinger, mysterious author of The Catcher in the Rye, is remembered today as a reclusive misanthrope. Jerome Charyn's Salinger is a young American WWII draftee assigned to the Counter Intelligence Corps, a band of secret soldiers who trained with the British. A rifleman and an interrogator, he witnessed all the horrors of the war—from the landing on D-Day to the relentless hand-to-hand combat in the hedgerows of Normandy, to the Battle of the Bulge, and finally to the first Allied entry into a Bavarian death camp, where corpses were piled like cordwood.After the war, interned in a Nuremberg psychiatric clinic, Salinger became enchanted with a suspected Nazi informant. They married, but not long after he brought her home to New York, the marriage collapsed. Maladjusted to civilian life, he lived like a "spook," with invisible stripes on his shoulder, the...

"Charyn's blunt, brilliantly crafted prose bubbles with the pleasure of nailing life to the page in just the right words. . . . [Cesare is] provocative, stimulating and deeply satisfying." —Washington PostOn a windy night in 1937, a seventeen-year-old German naval sub-cadet is wandering along the seawall when he stumbles upon a gang of ruffians beating up a tramp, whose life he saves. The man is none other than spymaster Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the Abwehr, German military intelligence. Canaris adopts the young man and dubs him "Cesare" after the character in the silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari for his ability to break through any barrier as he eliminates the Abwehr's enemies.Canaris is a man of contradictions who, while serving the regime, seeks to undermine the Nazis and helps Cesare hide Berlin's Jews from the Gestapo. But the Nazis will lure many to Theresienstadt, a phony paradise in Czechoslovakia with sham...

The climactic conclusion to the iconic Isaac Sidel mystery series, which finds Charyn's acclaimed hero facing his toughest showdown yet, this time as commander-in-chief . . .Reflecting our own world like a volatile funhouse mirror, Winter Warning lures us back to the 1980s, an era that could have been ripped right out of our most recent political upheaval. Isaac Sidel should have been vice president, banished to some far corner of the West Wing, but the president-elect has been forced to resign or face indictment for his crooked land deals—and Sidel becomes the accidental president. He's a maverick, a crusader with a Glock in his belt, who defies both the Republicans and the Democrats. He seems haunted by Lincoln's ghost, and the presidential palace becomes his own "great white jail," as it did for Harry Truman.There's never been another president quite like Isaac Sidel, New York's former police commissioner and mayor. There's a secret lottery created by...

"In this brilliant and hilarious jailbreak of a novel, Charyn channels the genius poet and her great leaps of the imagination."—Donna Seaman, Booklist, starred reviewJerome Charyn, "one of the most important writers in American literature" (Michael Chabon), continues his exploration of American history through fiction with The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, hailed by prize-winning literary historian Brenda Wineapple as a "breathtaking high-wire act of ventriloquism." Channeling the devilish rhythms and ghosts of a seemingly buried literary past, Charyn removes the mysterious veils that have long enshrouded Dickinson, revealing her passions, inner turmoil, and powerful sexuality. The novel, daringly written in first person, begins in the snow. It's 1848, and Emily is a student at Mount Holyoke, with its mournful headmistress and strict, strict rules. Inspired by her letters and poetry, Charyn goes on to capture the occasionally comic, always fevered,...

In a shocking New York underworld populated by a constellation of punks, low lifes, thugs, nymphs, vice lords and bag men, Patrick Silver is an eccentric giant. An ex-cop, he once served under the now disgraced First Deputy Isaac Sidel. But now his life has taken a peculiar turn. He's been hired as a bodyguard to Jeronimo Guzmann, the most fiendish of a family of Peruvian pimps who have been plaguing Isaac Sidel. Isaac's out for revenge, and he's sure that Patrick can help him find the 'lipstick freak', a perverted murderer who has been stalking the New York skyline, painting the faces of little boys before he kills them. But when Patrick becomes distracted by the irresistible Odile Guzmann, helping out Isaac is the last thing on his mind.Review'Charyn has trained his prose and makes it perform tricks. It's a New York prose, street smart, sly and full of lurches, like a series of subway stops on the way to hell' New York Times 'A satiric hothouse of fast talk and low life' Washington Post 'He writes like greased lightning' Time Out 'Jerome Charyn is a realist of the urban nightmare' Chicago Tribune About the AuthorJerome Charyn was born in the Bronx in 1937, and is the author of more than thirty books, including Sizzling Chops & Devilish Spins, Metropolis: New York as Myth, Marketplace And Magical Land and The Black Swan. He has lived in Barcelona, Houston, Austin and San Francisco and now divides his time between New York and Paris, where he teaches film theory at the American University and writes regularly for Cahiers du Cinema.

Hailed as the first great Soviet writer, Isaac Babel was at once a product and a victim of violent revolution. In tales of Cossack marauders and flashy Odessa gangsters, he perfectly captured the raw, edgy mood of the first years of the Russian Revolution. Masked, reckless, impassioned, charismatic, Babel himself was as fascinating as the characters he created. At last, in renowned author Jerome Charyn, Babel has a portraitist worthy of his quicksilver genius.Though it traces the arc of Babel's charmed life and mysterious death, Savage Shorthand bursts the confines of straight biography to become a meditation on the pleasures, torments, and meanings of Babel's art. Even in childhood, Babel seemed destined to leave a mark. But it was only when his mentor, Maxim Gorky, ordered him to go out into the world of revolutionary Russia that Babel found his true voice and subject. His tales of the bandit king Benya Krik and the brutal raids of the Red Cavalry electrified Moscow....

When his father dies, a young bumper inherits the bloody family businessHolden is more than a bill collector. He's a killer. His father came to New York from Belgium to spend his life driving cars for the Aladdin Fur Company. But Holden has more ambition than his old man, and rises to the rank of bumper—a violent collector of debts that cannot be paid. But when his father dies, Holden departs for Europe, to live in seclusion until his money runs out. And it's then that his father's real business comes to call.The old man was a bumper too, but he killed for a slightly higher class of criminal. And now that he's gone, his employers want his son to take his place. Holden would like to to refuse, but murder is in his blood, and no man can resist his family legacy.

PEN/ Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography LonglistO, The Oprah Magazine “Best Books of Summer" selection“Magnetic nonfiction." —O, The Oprah Magazine“Remarkable insight . . . [a] unique meditation/investigation. . . . Jerome Charyn the unpredictable, elusive, and enigmatic is a natural match for Emily Dickinson, the quintessence of these." —Joyce Carol Oates, author of Wild Nights! and The Lost LandscapeWe think we know Emily Dickinson: the Belle of Amherst, virginal, reclusive, and possibly mad. But in A Loaded Gun, Jerome Charyn introduces us to a different Emily Dickinson: the fierce, brilliant, and sexually charged poet who wrote: My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—...Though I than He— may longer liveHe longer must—than I—For I have but the power to kill,Without—the power to die—Through...

Set in a shocking New York underworld populated by a constellation of punks, low lifes, thugs, nymphs, vice lords and bag men, Blue Eyes is the second book in Jerome Charyn's classic Isaac Quartet. Manfred 'Blue Eyes' Coen is a cop on loan to the First Deputy's office, sent to the mean streets of his old Bronx neighbourhood to do some very dirty business. Child brides are being kidnapped and are turning up in Mexico, and the daughter of a millionaire has gone missing. Are Coen's childhood friends, the Guzmanns, the key to this mystery? Coen's mentor, the disgraced First Deputy, Isaac Sidel, knew that there was only one man for the job. So, caught between his childhood loyalties and his reputation as the toughest, sharpest cop in New York City, it's up to Blue Eyes to solve the case. But too many people are double-crossing him - and too many people want him dead.Review'A complete, dark moving vision' James Ellroy 'Charyn has trained his prose and makes it perform tricks. It's a New York prose, street smart, sly and full of lurches, like a series of subway stops on the way to hell' New York Times About the AuthorJerome Charyn was born in the Bronx in 1937, and is the author of more than thirty books, including Sizzling Chops & Devilish Spins, Metropolis: New York as Myth, Marketplace And Magical Land and The Black Swan. He has lived in Barcelona, Houston, Austin and San Francisco and now divides his time between New York and Paris, where he teaches film theory at the American University and writes regularly for Cahiers du Cinema.

When a friend's crime spree threatens his legal empire, a powerful New York attorney must race to stop it—before at least one of them winds up deadEdward Parkchester, or Parky, "the black eagle," is the most successful criminal lawyer in town. He looms over Manhattan from his lair in Sugar Hill and has only one client, Byron Abando, a Mafia prince with a Phi Beta Kappa key. But the black eagle suddenly finds his empire in ruins. Freeman Faulks, a detective who helped steer Parky out of a troubled childhood at the Abraham Lincoln projects, has gone on a crime spree, sticking up a bunch of liquor stores. Parky has to find Freeman, but first he will have to match wits with his own boss, Byron Abando, and with Sandra Sutpen, the high priestess of federal prosecutors—who likes to toss her underpants at enemies and the men she loves.There's something sinister behind Faulks's crime spree, and if Parky doesn't move fast enough, he might not make it out of Manhattan alive.

Dermott McBride was a James Joyce scholar who went on to become overlord of every pimp in Manhattan. Isaac Sidel wanted to break his toes for scarring young prostitute Annie Powell, but first he had to sort out the small matter of a corrupt New York police commissioner.Review'Charyn has trained his prose and makes it perform tricks. It's a New York prose, street smart, sly and full of lurches, like a series of subway stops on the way to hell' New York Times 'He writes like greased lightning' Time Out 'The sentences clip along at a pace that makes MTV seem slow ... a satiric hothouse of fast talk and low life' Washington Post 'Jerome Charyn is a realist of the urban nightmare' Chicago Tribune About the AuthorJerome Charyn was born in the Bronx in 1937, and is the author of more than thirty books, including Sizzling Chops & Devilish Spins, Metropolis: New York as Myth, Marketplace And Magical Land and The Black Swan. He has lived in Barcelona, Houston, Austin and San Francisco and now divides his time between New York and Paris, where he teaches film theory at the American University and writes regularly for Cahiers du Cinema.

"A rollicking tale."—Stacy Schiff, New York Times Book Review, Editors' ChoiceJohnny One-Eye is bringing about the rediscovery of one of the most "singular and remarkable [careers] in American literature" (Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World). In this picaresque tour de force that reanimates Revolutionary Manhattan through the story of double agent John Stocking, the bastard son of a whorehouse madam and possibly George Washington, Jerome Charyn has given us one of the most memorable historical novels in years. As Johnny seeks to unlock the mystery of his birth and grapples with his allegiances, he falls in love with Clara, a gorgeous, green-eyed octoroon, the most coveted harlot of Gertrude's house. The wild parade of characters he encounters includes Benedict Arnold, the Howe brothers, "Sir Billy" and "Black Dick," and a manipulative Alexander Hamilton.Not since John Barth's The Sotweed Factor and Gore Vidal's Burr has a novel...