| Author: | Meyer Levin | ISBN: | 9781625670878 |
| Publisher: | Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc. | Publication: | July 11, 2014 |
| Imprint: | Language: | English |
| Author: | Meyer Levin |
| ISBN: | 9781625670878 |
| Publisher: | Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc. |
| Publication: | July 11, 2014 |
| Imprint: | |
| Language: | English |
The Old Bunch chronicles the lives of nineteen Jewish men and women on Chicago’s west side, a spawling-yet-intimate portrait of American life during the Great Depression, by an author the LA Times hailed as “the most significant American Jewish writer of his time.”
Among the various lives depicted so vividly are those of Joe Feeman, a wayward artist who loses the love of his life to a doctor whose future path is as clear as Joe’s is uncertain. Sam Eisen appears to be following a stable path into law, but in actuality his contempt for the conformist lifestyles of his friends is second only to the distain he feels for the very life he has chosen. Sol Meisel starts out pursuing his dreams of becoming a professional athlete, before settling down to join his father’s business. Interweaving storylines of rebellion and growing up, Levin unsentimentally generates a worldview that is striking in its pre-World War II innocence, while also clearly delineating the old world from the new.
The Old Bunch is one of the great novels of and about the interwar period. Both of its time and remarkably fresh, it is an outstanding achievement by a preeminent American writer.
Norman Mailer referred to Levin as “one of the best American writers working in the realistic tradition.” Ernest Hemingway called his book Citizens “a fine American novel – one of the best I ever read.” In 1957, Levin won the Special Edgar Award for his book Compulsion, the renowned account of the Leopold and Loeb murders and the basis for the 20th Century Fox motion picture.
This edition has been authorized by the Estate of Meyer Levin.
REVIEWS
“The Old Bunch is written in good hard-driving colloquial prose, and is full of sharp characterizations... A very fine novel with the speed and lustiness and brawling of the world’s fourth largest city.” --New Republic
“A landmark in the development of the realistic novel... incident by incident it makes vivid and exciting reading... it brilliantly succeeds in taking the reader on a memorable tour of the world in which the “old bunch” lived.” --NY Times
The Old Bunch chronicles the lives of nineteen Jewish men and women on Chicago’s west side, a spawling-yet-intimate portrait of American life during the Great Depression, by an author the LA Times hailed as “the most significant American Jewish writer of his time.”
Among the various lives depicted so vividly are those of Joe Feeman, a wayward artist who loses the love of his life to a doctor whose future path is as clear as Joe’s is uncertain. Sam Eisen appears to be following a stable path into law, but in actuality his contempt for the conformist lifestyles of his friends is second only to the distain he feels for the very life he has chosen. Sol Meisel starts out pursuing his dreams of becoming a professional athlete, before settling down to join his father’s business. Interweaving storylines of rebellion and growing up, Levin unsentimentally generates a worldview that is striking in its pre-World War II innocence, while also clearly delineating the old world from the new.
The Old Bunch is one of the great novels of and about the interwar period. Both of its time and remarkably fresh, it is an outstanding achievement by a preeminent American writer.
Norman Mailer referred to Levin as “one of the best American writers working in the realistic tradition.” Ernest Hemingway called his book Citizens “a fine American novel – one of the best I ever read.” In 1957, Levin won the Special Edgar Award for his book Compulsion, the renowned account of the Leopold and Loeb murders and the basis for the 20th Century Fox motion picture.
This edition has been authorized by the Estate of Meyer Levin.
REVIEWS
“The Old Bunch is written in good hard-driving colloquial prose, and is full of sharp characterizations... A very fine novel with the speed and lustiness and brawling of the world’s fourth largest city.” --New Republic
“A landmark in the development of the realistic novel... incident by incident it makes vivid and exciting reading... it brilliantly succeeds in taking the reader on a memorable tour of the world in which the “old bunch” lived.” --NY Times
