The Angel of Forgetfulness

By Steve Stern

Book Overview

When Steve Stern appeared on the literary scene The New York Times Book Reviewhailed him as a prodigiously talented writer who arrives unheralded like one of the apparitions in his own stories.? In his new novel, The Angel of Forgetfulness, he interweaves three stories about characters who take flight from their ordinary lives and are plunged into extraordinary circumstances. At the center of it all is an unfinished manuscript?an adventure about a fallen angel named Mocky and his half-mortal son Nachman, who both take up residence on the Lower East Side of New York circa 1900. Their story has been written by Nathan Hart, a timid proofreader for The Jewish Daily Forward, who woos a young woman named Keni with his exotic tale. Seduced by the power of his own imagination, Nathan is drawn deliriously away from Keni into the world of his story, the Jewish underworld of arsonists, horse poisoners, and thieves. More than half a century later, Keni, on her deathbed, gives Nathan?s now-tattered manuscript to her young nephew, Saul, with the injunction that Saul complete the story himself. Saul?s evasion of the task prompts a journey into the crucible of the sixties, one fueled by sex, drugs, and the dust of a golem in the attic of a medieval synagogue in Prague.Dexterously juggling the narratives of Saul, Nathan, Mocky, and Nachman until they all merge in the novel?s satisfying close, Stern has created a magical tour de force of the storyteller?s art, one that celebrates the turbulent romance between past and present, art and obsession.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670033871
• ISBN13: 9780670033874
• Release Date: March 2005
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 403 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.4" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Original Read

I did not fall in love with the plot of this book as much as I fell in love with Stern's characters. You will enjoy spending your time with them during the read and will remember them all as if you really got to know them.

Follow, follow

Memphis and Arkansas in the 60s. The Lower East Side in the 1900s. Heaven. The depths, heights, sidespins and blind alleys of magical realism. The stage. An attic in Prague. The Catskills. Where up is down. (Somewhere else you want to go maybe? Ingrate!) I hestitate to call this the culmination of Stern's work only because that would leave him nowhere to go. His individual sentences are more poetic than most author's books. His realism is real, his magic is Magic, and his weaving of the two is seamless.

almost great novel

I read the other reviews and felt compelled to take the reviews down a notch. The novel works when it disquiets the reader and challenges your notions of appropriate and productive behavior. It works less well when delving into the world of fantasy. Still, one of the best reads of 2005, but be prepared to stick with it past page 200 when the more personal story tapers off and the fanciful story dominates.

Wonderful novel

Wonderful novel that will keep you spellbound. Excellent read and a book you'll want to share with others.

His magnum opus

Steve Stern is a literary alchemist of the first water, equal parts Dickens and Cynthia Ozick, Bruno Schulz and Borges. And this is his crowning achievement, a novel as copious as a parson's barn, and as deep as the glimmering soul of a star. You can be forgiven if once you begin this magical funhouse ride you abandon all earthly duties and live between its covers for a while. And if this is your introduction to the enchantments of the Stern universe you should then start through his backlist one delicious book at a time.