Bitter Bronx Thirteen Stories [Hardcover]

A borough native wrestles with con men, gangsters and the biggest villain of allRobert Moses&. One is left with no doubt that Jerome Charyns shriek, his war cry, his own peculiar music, was born [in the Bronx].[Jerome Charyn] is to the Bronx what Saul Bellow, early in his career, was to Upper Broadwaybard, celebrant, mythologizer.It is no small achievement to be the Babel of the Bronx.Sharp-edged short stories&Charyns narrative sleight of hand is wonderfully at play&. Despite the hard edges, and there are many, a rich sweetness flows just below the surface of[T]here are certain constants in Charyns work: an energetic, urbane prose, a playful approach to narrative, a fascination with history, and a downbeat, noir-ish perspective. This fatalistic outlook coexists comfortably with the ebullient verve and propulsion of his prose&. Whether writing about Yiddish theatre or silent film or movie palaces or old Bronx neighborhoods, Charyn is the curator, celebrant, and mourner of lost worlds&. The prose impresses with its accumulation of apt details, fresh diction, and serpentine syntax&. Is Charyn truly a romantic or a trickster? Hard to say on the basis of these entertaining stories: probably both. They are written with confidence, fluidity, mischievous aplomb, and a lifetimes worth of acquired literary skill. A light ironic touch peeps through these tales of doomed passion, as though the septuagenarian Charyn were mocking his own former searching for a movie-type love, his previous constant adolescence of hungering for dream women.In this collection of stories, Charyns characters leave blighted streets only to boomerang back to a part of New York in permanent recession. With echoes of Walt Whitmans fantastical city and the hard-broiled territory of Mickey Spillane,Jerome Charyn is one of the most important writers in American literature.Jerome Charyn is merely one of our finest writers, with a polymorphous imagination and crack comic timing. WhatlÝ