Praise for Ravage & Son
“[Charyn’s] storytelling is off-the-chart wonderful.” —Jerusalem Post
“Evoke[s] the Shakespearean Lower East Side. . . . The prose of this novel pulsates in a relentless torrent.” —New York Sun
“Complex and captivating. . . . The noir style of this novel shows Jerome Charyn at his best.” —Jewish Book Council
“[A] gritty historical crime novel. . . . Brawny, vibrant pulp fiction.” —The Forward
“A panorama of the times.” —The Reporter
“An epic work of historical fiction. . . . The novel is part Jekyll and Hyde, part crime noir, part mystery novel, and ultimately an instant classic—a cinematic kaleidoscope that captures humanity’s intense beauty and utter debauchery.” —PopMatters
“Both social commentary and a whodunit . . . [Charyn] tells a story about social issues relevant today including LGBT shame, class struggle, immigration standards, antisemitism, and balanced journalism. His talent at blending history with fiction results in a magnificent portrait of the darker side of society.” —On the Seawall
“Charyn is an institution. . . . His skill is such that it’s difficult to separate the real-world figures and entities from the characters and places the author is inventing.” —Washington Independent Review of Books
“With biting humor and fierce tenderness, Jerome Charyn builds the world of Manhattan’s Lower East Side Jewish ghetto from 1883 onward, rife with crime, passion, and the competition of shrewd businessmen and immigrant gangs.” —Historical Novels Reviews
“Rollicking. . . . Ravage & Son brings New York City’s criminal underground to vibrant life.” —Foreword Reviews
“Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights has nothing on Charyn’s Lower East Side.” —Kirkus Reviews
Select Praise for Jerome Charyn
“Jerome Charyn, like Nabokov, is that most fiendish sort of writer—so seductive as to beg imitation, so singular as to make imitation impossible.” —Tom Bissell
“Charyn is one of the most important writers in American literature.” —Michael Chabon
“Charyn is a one off: no other living American writer crafts novels with his vibrancy of historical imagination.” —William Giraldi
“[Charyn’s] sentences are pure vernacular music, his voice unmistakable.” —Jonathan Lethem
“One of our most rewarding novelists.” —Larry McMurtry
“Among Charyn’s writerly gifts is a dazzling energy―a highly inflected rapid-fire prose that pulls us along like a pony cart over rough terrain.” —Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books
“Charyn skillfully breathes life into historical icons.” —New Yorker
“One of our most intriguing fiction writers.” —O, The Oprah Magazine
“Absolutely unique among American writers.” —Los Angeles Times
“A contemporary American Balzac.” —Newsday
“Charyn’s blunt, brilliantly crafted prose bubbles with the pleasure of nailing life to the page in just the right words.” —Washington Post
“[Charyn] writes with the sort of whirlwind energy that turns the seediest story into a breakneck adventure.” —Wall Street Journal
“Charyn has a gift for the unexpected, both linguistically and narratively. . . . The result is at once surprising and very entertaining.” —BookPage
“For half a century, [Charyn] has been an unpredictable, unclassifiable, and above all exactingly smart author.” —Open Letters Review
“Charyn, as he has proven time and time again, is a master of the written word.” —Jewish Journal
2023-07-13
A bleak tale of murder, corruption, and antisemitism in pre–World War I Manhattan.
Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights has nothing on Charyn’s Lower East Side, described by one character as home to “every kind of vermin.” Abraham Cahan, muckraking editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, has no shortage of targets, including all-powerful real estate baron Lionel Ravage, “the fallen angel among Jewish aristocrats,” who mistreats and abuses immigrants in equal measure. Having spawned countless illegitimate children, Ravage has little to do with any of them, including his conflicted son Ben, whom Cahan takes under his wing and gets into Harvard Law School. Shrugging off his law degree, Ben becomes an investigator for the Kehilla, a neighborhood watch–type group funded by wealthy Jews. Their aim is to stop rampant assaults on young Jewish women, one of whom is pulled out of the East River “like a broken mermaid.” Ben will stop at nothing to find the culprit, including getting the stuffing kicked out of him. Painful revelations await. Stuffed, à la Ragtime, with real-life celebrities including Henry James (whose “sympathies didn't extend to the Jewish quarter” on Ellis Island), the novel doesn’t aways justify their presence. There are enjoyable touches of magic realism, including an enforcer whose threatening presence is announced by canaries flitting around his too-small derby, but descriptions and digressions can make for slow reading. A bold effort, but following Charyn's brilliant Sergeant Salinger (2021) and enjoyable Big Red (2022), a disappointment.
One of Charyn's less-rewarding forays into historical fiction.
