Cesare

(Paperback)

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'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 Post

On 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 restaurants, novelty shops, and bakeries, a cruel ghetto and way station to Auschwitz. When the woman Cesare loves, a member of the Jewish underground, is captured and sent there, Cesare must find a way to rescue her.

Reviews

hectic and heart-pounding prose that pushes the reader through the pages -- Rabbi Rachel Esserman * The Reporter *
Cesare can be provocative, nightmarish and expressionistic - a bold statement from a prolific Bronx-born author with a distinguished career lasting half a century -- Alastair Mabbott * Herald *
Cesare is haunting, traumatic, and yet I wholeheartedly recommend, and include it as one of my Liz Picks of the Month -- Liz Robinson * LoveReading *
Charyn's blunt, brilliantly crafted prose bubbles with the pleasure of nailing life to the page in just the right words. Cesare is by no means lightweight fare, but it's provocative, stimulating and deeply satisfying * Washington Post *
It's a dark art to make a subject this grotesque quite this much fun * Wall Street Journal *

Author Bio

Jerome Charyn (b. 1937) is the critically acclaimed author of nearly fifty books. Born in the Bronx, he attended Columbia College. After graduating, he took a job as a playground director and wrote in his spare time, producing his first novel, a Lower East Side fairytale called Once Upon a Droshky , in 1964. In 1974, Charyn published Blue Eyes , his first Isaac Sidel mystery. This first in athe so-called Sidel quartet introduced the eccentric, near-mythic Sidel, and his bizarre cast of sidekicks. Although he completed the quartet with Secret Isaac (1978), Charyn followed the character through Under the Eye of God . Charyn, who divides his time between New York and Paris, is also accomplished at table tennis, and once ranked amongst France's top 10 percent of ping-pong players.