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Blog Tour for Jerome Charyn’s Latest Historical Fiction Kicks Off 1/6!

The blog tour for critically acclaimed author, Jerome Charyn’s latest novel, THE PERILOUS ADVENTURES OF THE COWBOY KING: A Novel of Teddy Roosevelt and His Times kicks off on Sunday, January 6, the 100th anniversary of Teddy Roosevelt’s death. Check out the full schedule.

In this novel, which The Washington Post calls “tremendous fun” and Kirkus Reviews calls, “colorful, entertaining” in its starred review, Charyn gives new dimension to Roosevelt, revealing Manhattan’s swampy underbelly after the Civil War, TR’s farcical and dangerous expeditions to the Dakota Badlands, and his personal anguish at losing his mother and wife on the same day.  Like the best of E.L. Doctorow, historical detail is supported by a keen grasp of language and marked by a lack of sentimentality about the past.  With a colorful supporting cast—including Buffalo Bill Cody, Eleanor Roosevelt, Leon Czolgosz (President McKinley’s assassin), plus Josephine, the loveable mountain lion who was the mascot of the Rough Riders (seen with Roosevelt on the cover), and the Rough Riders themselves, whom Roosevelt never deserted, THE PERILOUS ADVENTURES OF THE COWBOY KING is historical fiction and Jerome Charyn at their very best. 

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My Mother’s Son by David Hirshberg

FigTree Books LLC, publisher of the best literature of the American Jewish experience, has published My Mother’s Son, a debut novel by David Hirshberg. 

The story is told by a radio raconteur revisiting his past in post-World War II Boston, the playground and battleground for two brothers whose lives are transformed by discoveries they never could have imagined. From the opening line of the book, “When you’re a kid, they don’t always tell you the truth,” the stage is set for this riveting coming-of-age story that plays out against the backdrop of the Korean War, the aftermath of the Holocaust, the polio epidemic, the relocation of a baseball team, and the shenanigans of politicians and businessmen. Hirshberg deftly weaves together events, characters, and clues and creates a rich tapestry of betrayal, persecution, death,loyalty, and unconditional love that resonates with today’s America.

My Mother’s Son has received impressive accolades, including:

  • Gold Medal, 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards, RegionalFiction
  • Winner, 2018 National Indie Excellence Awards, Best RegionalFiction,
  • Winner, two New York City Big Book Awards:Historical Fiction and Debut Fiction.

It has also received strong review coverage including a starred review in both Booklist and Library Journal and:

The Jewish Book Council

The Jewish Advocate (Boston)

The Washington Jewish Week

The Reporter Group

Too Jewish Radio Podcast

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EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET receives rave reviews from Irish and mainstream press

EXILE_BRIDGE_STREET_Eamon_LoingsighWe’ve been fans of Eamon Loingsigh’s writing for some time now. We had the privilege to work on his debut novel, LIGHT OF THE DIDDICOY, and now we’re excited to be helping to spread the word regarding his new work, EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET.

 

Reviews are starting to come in, and the Irish press, indy press — ALL the press — are loving this new novel. Check out  what they have to say:

 

“In his beautiful, passionate prose, Loingsigh — an Irishman himself — continually reminds us of the motherland and the suffering of Irish emigrants. . . . EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET is a gangster story that reads more like “Robin Hood” than The Godfather because of these men’s inner strength and the love they have for each other. . . .
It’s also an intimate look at criminals whose lives have been hardened by oppression and weathered by storms, while inside their rough shells they hide soft hearts.”
—Washington Independent Review of Books

 

“When accomplished Irish American writers address the lives and experiences of the early 20th century Irish in New York they are recording, but also in a deeper sense also reclaiming a lost heritage. This is painstaking work that’s worth celebrating in its own right, but then to give us a vivid portrait of these flinty people in all their complexity and courage is a thing to cheer about. EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET, author Eamon Loingsigh’s new novel, is a follow up to Light of the Diddicoy, and it’s a high wire act of creativity and reclamation that deserves the widest possible audience.”
 —Irish Central“

 

Loingsigh has an urgent story to tell. And he tells it well. This is a street-level history of how the other half has always lived, the kind of story rarely worried over in classrooms or political campaigns. Loingsigh’s great strength is his unsentimental take on the immigrant experience which—despite the rancor of today’s debate—often acquires a sepia tone when it is discussed in the past tense. EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET should be required reading for those who rail about how today’s immigrants “refuse to assimilate.”
–Brooklyn Rail

 

[EXILE ON BRIDGE STREET], a follow-up to his previous gripping novel The Light of the Diddicoy, is set on the rough-and-tumble streets in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge, where Irish and Italian immigrants fight fiercely for control of the docks and all the jobs and money that comes with that control…On the surface, Loingsigh’s book mines Brooklyn’s gory and glorious Irish past.  But it is also the quintessential read for 21st century Brooklyn. Not only is it all too plausible that Liam McGarrity’s grandchildren are cops of firefighters living in Marine Park.  But consider all of those immigrants coming into Brooklyn these days. Love? Death? Money? Struggles in the homeland? Surely they can relate to a thing or two Liam had to endure as he was becoming an American in Brooklyn. 
—Irish Voice

 

More reviews to come soon!

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Jay Neugeboren’s latest novel, MAX BAER AND THE STAR OF DAVID, debuts this week from Mandel Vilar Press

MaxBaer_CVR_FinalWhen Jay Neugeboren’s first novel, Big Man, was published, James Michener called it “as good a sports novel as has ever been written.” Now, nearly a half-century later, Neugeboren is publishing MAX BAER AND THE STAR OF DAVID (Mandel Vilar Press Trade Paperback Original; February 9, 2016), his 22nd book and a remarkable novel that is centered on the life of the world heavyweight champion, Max Baer.

The novel has received wonderful advanced praise from several critically acclaimed authors, including:

“Neugeboren has never been better than in this lush, joyful novel—as erotic and mysterious as The Song of Songs, and as clear as a heavyweight champion’s punch in the gut. I loved it.”

—ROBERT LIPSYTE, author of An Accidental Sportswriter

“Max Baer and the Star of David is a strange and strangely beautiful tale that conjures up a golden era of boxing in the way A. J. Liebling did in The Sweet Science. I was enchanted from start to finish, and when I closed the book I thought ‘Damn, this dude can write!’”

       —GARY SHTEYNGART, author of Little Failure: A Memoir 

“This lively, high-spirited novel is an irresistible tribute to the sweet science, and a thrillingly jaunty evocation of an almost forgotten era.  Neugeboren has, as always, the gift of creating vivid characters and the imagination to put them through delicious travails.”

—PHILLIP LOPATE, author of Portrait Inside My Head

And here are links to some of the coverage running this week:

Blunderbuss Magazine

Boxing.com

NewPages.com

Reviews by Amos Lassen

Visit Jay Neugeboren’s website and Mandel Vilar Press for more information.

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Miami Beach Selects Thane Rosenbaum’s How Sweet It Is! For Its One Book, One City Initiative

The City of Miami Beach has announced that in recognition of its Centennial celebration, it will launch a citywide book club reading experience titled, One Book, One City. Its very first selection will be Thane Rosenbaum’s latest novel, HOW SWEET IT IS!, a literary, comedic tale set in Miami Beach in the summer of 1972. A novelist, essayist and law professor living in New York, Rosenbaum was raised in Miami Beach and is arguably the city’s most critically acclaimed author/native son.

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Mandel Vilar Press will create a special and elegant paperback edition of HOW SWEET IT IS! just for Miami Beach’s Centennial, which will be available by the end of September. Readers will have plenty of time to read the novel and prepare for all of the fun events that will be taking place in November around the novel.

Citywide programming includes:

  • 11/4 – Kick-off event with Thane Rosenbaum at the Jewish Museum, 7pm.
  • 11/7 – Miami Beach Library Branch Read-A-Thon, 2-4pm in the auditorium
  • 11/15 – Book reading at the Betsy Hotel with Thane Rosenbaum, 7:30-8:30pm.
  • 11/17 – Miami Beach Library Branch Book Discussion with Thane Rosenbaum, 6:30pm – 7:30pm.
  • 11/18 – South Shore Library Book Group Discussion, 6:30pm – 7:30pm.
  • 11/25 – Miami Beach Bandshell, Food Truck Rally, appearance with Thane Rosenbaum and locals from the 1970s, 7:30 – 8:30pm.

Thane Rosenbaum will also discuss and sign copies of HOW SWEET IT IS! at the Miami Book Fair International on either the 21st or the 22nd of November.

Set during the historic and tumultuous year of 1972, HOW SWEET IT IS! follows the Posner family—two Holocaust survivors, Sophie and Jacob and their son, Adam—doing everything they can to avoid one another in a city with an infinite supply of colorful diversions. The book covers the antiwar movement, Watergate, sports (Super Bowl winning season, the Munich Olympics, and Muhammad Ali’s return to championship form), the rise of the counterculture, the desegregation of the south, the fading of the Jewish Mafia, the Rat Pack, and the wacky, poignant and hilarious gestalt of Miami in the 70s.

A Reader’s Guide for HOW SWEET IT IS! is available here .

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