In the Shadow of King Saul: Essays on Silence and Song

(Paperback)

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"Jerome Charyn is one of the most important writers in American literature." Michael Chabon

"Whatever milieu [Charyn] chooses to inhabit . . . his sentences are pure vernacular music, his voice unmistakable." Jonathan Lethem

"With his customary linguistic verve and pulsing imagination, Charyn serves up here some of the tastiest essay writing available. He knows and loves New York past and present, and he draws on a lifetime of raucous experience and dedicated reading for a rich, heady, satisfying brew." Phillip Lopate

In the New York Review of Books, Joyce Carol Oates expressed her admiration for an equally prolific contemporary: "Among Charyn's writerly gifts is a dazzling energy. . . . [He is] an exuberant chronicler of the mythos of American life"; the Los Angeles Times described him as "absolutely unique among American writers." In these ten essays, Charyn shares personal stories about places steeped in history and myth, including his beloved New York, and larger-than-life personalities from the Bible and from the worlds of film, literature, politics, sports, and the author's own family. Together, writes Charyn, these essays create "my own lyrical autobiography. Several of the selections are about other writers, some celebrated, some forgotten. . . . All of [whom] scalped me in some way, left their mark."

Jerome Charyn is the author of more than fifty works of fiction and nonfiction. Among other honors, Charyn has been named a Commander of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture and received the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Reviews

Praise for In the Shadow of King Saul

"Accessible and brimming with erudition. . . . Charyn writes with passionate precision about writers, films and filmmakers, about New York's marginalized classes, and all manner of cultural icons. . . . [He] deftly blends the stories of his own life with the stories of those whose ordeals, failures, and victories hold special meaning for him as symptomatic of the American experience. . . . Wherever he takes us, Charyn's mind is always agile, and his prose is stunningly electric." --Jewish Book Council

"Powerful. . . . Charyn composes an autobiography of essays, sharing lessons learned from a lifetime of love for leading ladies, literature and language." --Shelf Awareness for Readers

"Lively essays. . . . A very personal view of the past artfully brought to vivid life." --Kirkus Reviews

"Deeply personal. . . . Readers will delight in encountering Charyn's New York City. . . . From his ruminations on seeing classic studio-era films during his South Bronx childhood in the 1940s and '50s to an account of a day spent with Mayor Ed Koch in the mid-'80s, Charyn's prose enchants. . . . Longtime fans and those new to Charyn's work alike will enjoy this distinctive glimpse into one author's influences." --Publishers Weekly

"A valuable collection, both an effective primer for readers new to Charyn's work and an intriguing read for those already familiar, showing off his skills as a memoirist and a culture writer in equal measure." --Foreword Reviews

"[Charyn] is a writer of great passion, lyric and empathy. . . . These essays flow from the page with realism and from an author who knows the truth." --North of Oxford

"In [Charyn's] enchanting writing, the glory is in the details." --Comics Grinder

"With his customary linguistic verve and pulsing imagination, Charyn serves up here some of the tastiest essay writing available. He knows and loves New York past and present, and he draws on a lifetime of raucous experience and dedicated reading for a rich, heady, satisfying brew." --Phillip Lopate

Select Praise for Jerome Charyn

"Jerome Charyn is one of the most important writers in American literature." --Michael Chabon

"One of our finest writers. . . . Whatever milieu [Charyn] chooses to inhabit, . . . his sentences are pure vernacular music, his voice unmistakable." --Jonathan Lethem

"Charyn, like Nabokov, is that most fiendish sort of writer, so seductive as to beg imitation, so singular as to make imitation impossible." --Tom Bissell

"Among Charyn's writerly gifts is a dazzling energy. . . . [He is] an exuberant chronicler of the mythos of American life." --Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books

"Charyn skillfully breathes life into historical icons." --New Yorker

"Both a serious writer and an immensely approachable one, always witty and readable." --Washington Post

"Absolutely unique among American writers." --Los Angeles Times

"A contemporary American Balzac." --Newsday

Author Bio

Jerome Charyn is the author of more than fifty works of fiction and nonfiction, including Sergeant Salinger; Cesare: A Novel of War-Torn Berlin; The Perilous Adventures of the Cowboy King: A Novel of Teddy Roosevelt and His Times; In the Shadow of King Saul: Essays on Silence and Song; Jerzy: A Novel; and A Loaded Gun: Emily Dickinson for the 21st Century. Among other honors, his novels have been selected as finalists for the Firecracker Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Charyn has also been named a Commander of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture and received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in New York.