Ziff: A Life?: A Novel

By Alan Lelchuk

Book Overview

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786713313
• ISBN13: 9780786713318
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: Carroll & Graf
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.3" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

A Serious Novel Needing Serious Attention

No serious reader of contemporary American fiction should pass this novel by. It's a splendid investigation of important themes like identity, celebrity, mortality,and personal authenticity. Unlike so many contemporary novelists, Lelchuk is truly and boldly self-revealing, not childishly exhibitionistic. ZIFF: A LIFE?, as it title suggests, is full of questions; its mood is one of frank skepticism, and its focus one of intense scrutiny of the self and the world, of assigned vs. achieved morality, of what it is to be a man, a writer, a friend, a mortal.There is no piety in this book and no currying for literary favor. It's not surprising that some publications and some critics are threatened by its interrogation of the literary status quo. I strongly urge those who are interested in the true cutting edge -- that of the original artist having his say without concern for passing fashion and passing authority -- buy this book today. Buy two -- give one to a friend.