Cesare: A Novel of War-Torn Berlin

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"Jerome Charyn is one of the most important writers in American literature." -Michael Chabon "[Charyn's] sentences are pure vernacular music, his voice unmistakable." -Jonathan Lethem "One of our most rewarding novelists." -Larry McMurtry 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. Cesare is a literary thriller and a love story born of the horrors of a country whose culture has died, whose history has been warped, and whose soul has disappeared. Jerome Charyn is the author of more than fifty works of fiction and nonfiction. Among other honors, he has received the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and his novels have been selected as finalists for the Firecracker Award and PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. Charyn lives in New York.

Reviews

Praise for Cesare

Wingate Prize Long List

Charyns 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 its provocative, stimulating and deeply satisfying. Washington Post

Its a dark art to make a subject this grotesque quite this much fun. Wall Street Journal

Spectacular. . . . This extraordinary tour de force showcases [Charyn] at the top of his game. Publishers Weekly (starred review)

[An] edgy, hallucinatory, full-throttle fable. Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

[Charyns] taut story line is full of surreal visuals and elaborate illusions. Booklist

A complex and detailed story of the inner workings of the German Third Reich during World War II. . . . Highly recommended. Library Journal

Charyn has created a terrific cast of original characters who speak in a language that reflects the selfish and predatory nature of that time. . . . He tells a fascinating story of resistance against evil with a great deal of energy. Historical Novels Review

Deftly written and original. . . . Unreservedly recommended. Midwest Book Review

Charyn conjures up a narrative punctuated with powerful imagery. . . . In a novel full of its share of the grotesque, it takes an artist with a precise touch such as Charyn to achieve such artful results. Comics Grinder

Select Praise for Jerome Charyn

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

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

Charyn is a one off: no other living American writer crafts novels with his vibrancy of historical imagination. William Giraldi

[Charyns] sentences are pure vernacular music, his voice unmistakable. Jonathan Lethem

One of our most rewarding novelists. Larry McMurtry

Among Charyns writerly gifts is a dazzling energya highly inflected rapid-fire prose that pulls us along like a pony cart over rough terrain. Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books

Charyn skillfully breathes life into historical icons. New Yorker

One of our most intriguing fiction writers. O, The Oprah Magazine

Absolutely unique among American writers. Los Angeles Times

A contemporary American Balzac. Newsday

Charyn has a gift for the unexpected, both linguistically and narratively. . . . The result is at once surprising and very entertaining. BookPage

For half a century, [Charyn] has been an unpredictable, unclassifiable, and above all exactingly smart author. Open Letters Review

Charyn makes artful use of historical fact and fictions panache. Kirkus Reviews

Wherever he takes us, Charyns mind is always agile, and his prose is stunningly electric. Jewish Book Council

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; 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 work has been longlisted for the PEN Award for Biography, shortlisted for the Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award, and selected as a finalist for the Firecracker Award and 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.