Call It Sleep: A Novel

Description

---

An American Type: A Novel

Description

“His early novel Call It Sleep was his Ulysses. His late work An American Type is his Grapes of Wrath.”—Thane Rosenbaum, Los Angeles Times

This “glorious, evocative, literary novel for the ages” (Los Angeles Times) has finally taken its place within the great canon of American fiction. Set during the Great Depression, against a backdrop of New York’s glimmering skyscrapers and Los Angeles’s seedy motor courts, this autobiographical work concludes the unparalleled saga of Henry Roth, whose classic Call It Sleep, published in 1934, went on to become one of Time’s 100 best American novels of the twentieth century. With echoes of Nathanael West and John Steinbeck, An American Type is a heartrending statement about American identity and the universal transcendence of love.

---

A Diving Rock on the Hudson: A Novel (Mercy of a Rude Stream)

Description

---

Requiem for Harlem: Mercy of a Rude Stream Volume IV, A Novel

Description

---

It's a shame that Henry Roth died in 1995, because now readers will never know what happens to his fictional alter ego, Ira Stigman, once he leaves City College. For readers familiar with Roth's series of autobiographical novels, Requiem for Harlem is the last of four books chronicling the childhood and young adulthood of Stigman; for those who have not yet discovered Roth, consider reading the first three in the series to get a handle on the dark, complicated, and rich world Ira Stigman occupies. Set in 1920s Harlem, Roth's novels explore the life of Jewish immigrants. In earlier volumes, the reader meets Ira, his sister Minnie, his cousin Stella, and his parents. Home life for the Stigmans is hardly heartwarming: the parents are locked in a violent marriage, and the children are involved in incestuous relationships. By the time Roth and Stigman have reached the events chronicled in Requiem for Harlem, Ira and Minnie are no longer sleeping together, but Ira and Stella are.

Requiem for Harlem follows Ira through his college years and his attempts to separate from his family, his neighborhood, and his own past. His childish passions for Minnie and Stella give way to his attraction to an older woman, Professor Edith Welles--an attraction that is as complex in its own way as his earlier relationships with his sister and cousin. It's unfortunate that there will be no further volumes taking us through the rest of Ira's life, but for those who wonder what happened to him, there is the example of Henry Roth to guide us.

---

The Strange Journal of the Boy Henry

Description

An eleven year old boy wakes up in a bedroom. He doesn’t know where he is and doesn’t remember who he is. He finds a very strange household whose members insist he is part of their family. When the creepy dad starts asking him strange questions, the boy notes his observations in a journal, to solve the puzzle of his very peculiar situation.
A mystery with twists and turns Dan Brown would admire.

Editorial Reviews:

From Stacey Turner, of The Author Spot(http://staceyturner-authorspot.blogspot.com/)
“For a very entertaining, quick read- look no farther than The Strange Journal of the Boy Henry. It's compelling, amusing and entertaining all in one. Let's face it, good writing is good writing regardless of the age group it's intended for. Fans of suspense & intrigue will really be pleased.”

From Nordic Reader’s Ingmar Berglund:
“A now commonplace idea made new; a complex plot laid out in simple detail. Henry’s Journal is one hell of a read.”

Excerpt:

Entry 1

I was woken, this morning, by a man’s voice.
“Time to get up, son,” is what I heard, over and over. So I opened my eyes and saw him. He was sitting on the bed, staring down at me.
“You sleep okay?” he asked.
And he smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“My little prince,” he continued. “You sleep okay?”
I didn’t know how to answer him. Because I didn’t know this man. I’d never seen him before in my life.
He had black hair and a mustache and light blue eyes. His skin was very pale. Almost pinkish, like he’d just taken a bath. He had big hands and long arms.
“You sleep okay?” he asked me again.
“I think so,” I told him.
“Well, time to get up. You and your brother both.”
And he looked across the room, so I looked there too. I saw another bed with a boy about my age. He wore blue pajamas, and was laying on his stomach; but his eyes were on me. His head was shaved all around the bottom, leaving a brown clump on top. And I didn’t know him either.
“Where am I?” I asked the man.
“Home, of course,” the man said. “Where else?”
I didn’t have an answer for him. I wanted to panic. Am I crazy? Or was he? What if he was? I better just play along, I decided.
“Let me know if you start feeling faint or dizzy, Henry,” the man said.
Henry. I’m pretty sure that that’s my name.
“You’ve been ill,” he said. “Anyway, I’m making breakfast and you’re gonna like it.”
He rose, and I saw that he was tall. He sighed and smiled at the same time, then left the room.
The boy stared at me and I stared at him. It was weird. We just looked at each other for like a whole minute. Then he got up and walked out too.
I looked around at the room. The walls are a light blue, and there’s a map of the world, another of the universe, and a Periodic Table. There’s also a picture of a sword and a shield. A round window hangs above the boy’s bed. The glass is blurred, so you can’t really see anything outside. You can only tell that there’s sunlight. Aside from our two beds, there’re two desks.
I didn’t know this room.
I tried to remember what my room should be like. What my dad should look like. And my brother – the man had said the boy was my brother. When did I have a brother? I couldn’t remember. It was all blank.
I wanted to scream: where in the world am I??
I made a decision to not freak out. Really I just needed to think about this rationally.
*

Author: San Alini
A mere simpleton fumbling through life's many mysteries. He writes screenplays and children’s books because he didn’t know any better. He lives not too far from you, and draws cartoons and tries to make the best of things.

---

Redemption: The Life of Henry Roth

Description

A penetrating biography of an unheralded master of American fiction.

Henry Roth (1906-1995), author of the great immigrant novel Call It Sleep, is one of the giants of American literature, yet for years he has lacked a biography. After completing his first book in 1934, Roth lapsed into a legendary six-decade silence, only to reemerge with Mercy of a Rude Stream, hailed as "a landmark of the American literary century" (David Mehegan, Boston Globe) and "as provocative as anything in the chapters of St. Augustine" (Stefan Kanfer, Los Angeles Times Book Review). In following Roth's tortured life from his childhood on the Jewish Lower East Side to his twilight years in New Mexico, literary critic Steven Kellman has uncovered FBI files, spoken with family members and friends, and gained access to the tape in which Roth discussed the long-buried incest of his youth. Redemption is the Shakespearean saga of a great writer doomed to a life of psychological torment, but saved in the end by his search for deliverance. 16 pages of illustrations.

---