Ziff

by Alan Lelchuk

Serious literature and sensational publishing collide when Danny Levitan, an obscure novelist, is offered a lucrative advance to write a biography of Arthur Ziff, a titan among the world's literary heavyweights and the scourge of myriad Jewish-American readers. Danny's enterprise as literary detective takes him from the Berkshires and Manhattan to Rome and Budapest in a series of adventures at once comic, exuberant, sexual, and outrageous. An unabashed look at the forging of literary careers and rivalry, acclaimed writer Alan Lelchuck fills Ziff with unforeseen twists and turns, all leading to the ironic ending of a rich and memorable novel that peers through the keyhole of contemporary literary celebrity.

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Angie Gazdziak · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was awful. So awful, in fact, I had forgotten that I read it over ten years ago because I had blocked it from my memory. It's terrible. Unsympathetic characters, shiteous writing, a poorly crafted plot, and nothing that actually drives the plot, save for a bombastic subject whose self-aggrandizing made me want to find him and run him down with my car. I have never been so mad at myself for reading a book. Don't start it and assume it will get better. It won't.