Dermott McBride was a James Joyce scholar who went on to become overlord of every pimp in Manhattan. Isaac Sidel wanted to break his toes for scarring young prostitute Annie Powell, but first he had to sort out the small matter of a corrupt New York police commissioner.
Jerome Charyn is an award-winning American author. With more than 50 published works, Charyn has earned a long-standing reputation as an inventive and prolific chronicler of real and imagined American life.
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon calls him "one of the most important writers in American literature." New York Newsday hailed Charyn as "a contemporary American Balzac," and the Los Angeles Times described him as "absolutely unique among American writers."
Since the 1964 release of Charyn's first novel, Once Upon a Droshky, he has published thirty novels, three memoirs, eight graphic novels, two books about film, short stories, plays, and works of non-fiction. Two of his memoirs were named New York Times Book of the Year.
Charyn has been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He received the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was named Commander of Arts and Letters by the French Minister of Culture. Charyn is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the American University of Paris.
In addition to writing and teaching, Charyn is a tournament table tennis player, once ranked in the top ten percent of players in France. Noted novelist Don DeLillo called Charyn's book on table tennis, Sizzling Chops & Devilish Spins, "The Sun Also Rises of ping-pong."
Charyn's most recent novel, Jerzy, was described by The New Yorker as a "fictional fantasia" about the life of Jerzy Kosinski, the controversial author of The Painted Bird. In 2010, Charyn wrote The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson, an imagined autobiography of the renowned poet, a book characterized by Joyce Carol Oates as a "fever-dream picaresque."
Charyn lives in New York City. He's currently working with artists Asaf and Tomer Hanuka on an animated television series based on his Isaac Sidel crime novels.
I love this book. It is a joy to read. It is lyrical, hard-boiled, sentimental, insightful...and he uses Ulysses by James Joyce for names, themes, etc. How great is that?!
Ne nous voilons pas la face: j'avais bien aimé la série d'Isaac quand j'étais ado principalement grâce à Zyeux-Bleus qui m'attendrissait pour une raison inconnue. Je ne suis plus ado, et là on est plus loin dans la série, plus de Zyeux-Bleux, hé ben encore aujourd'hui c'est un peu plus bof à mes yeux.
Ça reste du policier tordu pas désagréable à lire.