To an Early Grave

by Wallace Markfield

When Leslie Braverman passes away at the early age of 41, four of his closest friends are reunited on an odyssey through the streets of Brooklyn in a beat-up Volkswagen searching for the funeral parlor. In a series of fits, starts and wrong-turns, the comedic banter that suffuses the journey of these four Jewish proponents of New Criticism and little-magazine writing is quietly transformed into a quest for the intellectual, emotional and sentimental aura of the past. The basis for the 1968 movie "Bye Bye Braverman," "To An Early Grave" is a testament to the exuberant inventiveness of Wallace Markfield's writing.

Genres: Novels, American, Literature

255 pages, Paperback

First published January 28, 1964

About the author

Wallace Markfield (1926-2002) was one of the most important Jewish-American writers of the twentieth century. His novel To an Early Grave was adapted into the film Bye, Bye Braverman, directed by Sidney Lumet, and he was also the author of Teitlebaum's Window, You Could Live If They Let You, and Radical Surgery.

Reviews

[Kevin Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid 4.5 ⭐️

A hilarious road trip/buddy/NY novel from an author I hadn’t heard of before. I do now. Another excellent find from Dalkey Archive.

[🐴 🍖]

owns. maybe the best single illustration i know of how fiction -- good ass fiction, to be precise -- finds universality thru the specific. am i a jewish grant writer living on the uws in the early 60s? have i taken any madcap trips across the city in a volkswagen? no and no, unless you count that one uber. but i've got friends who've died, & i've got friends who make me laugh at inopportune times, & i've wondered if i'm a bad person when a piece of devastating news has failed to elicit tears. & if any of the above resonates, it doesn't matter if you know what a jelly apple is or have any command of yiddish beyond vey iz mir, you'll enjoy this. (if i had to change one thing, there's a scene where an old lady asks for morroe's help carrying an impossibly heavy basket of pretzels she says is full of "tsuris," which seems waaaaaaay too portentous and allegory-ish for a novel so light on its feet but i'll give it a pass.) read this alongside todd mcewen's who sleeps with katz for the perfect nyc memento-mori-cum-buddy-comedy double feature

[Frederic · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little too small in scope?...A bit parochial?...Somewhat dated in style and content?...Not funny enough given the blurb from Joseph Heller?...Or maybe the frequent Yiddish interpolations are distracting?...These picayune objections kept noodging me for the first third of this lovely,heroically humanist novel which tells the story of four middle-aged men in search of the funeral for a close friend who has died unexpectedly at the age of 41...a terrific book by an author with whose work I was previously unfamiliar...

[Noah Goats · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the rich dialogue, interesting characters, and often humorous tone. But it felt incoherent to me and longer than it’s 255 pages.

[Kyle Schnitzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun BK book.

[Joel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious New York novel. It's like a 60's time capsule!

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A comic verve worthy of Roth, Malamud and Heller.