Mercy of a Rude Stream

A Star Shines over Mt. Morris Park

Henry Roth

Picador

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Mercy of a Rude Stream marks the astonishing return of Henry Roth, sixty years after the publication of his classic novel Call it Sleep. A book of time, memory, and desire, this new novel is set in the New York of World War I: a colorful vibrant, carelessly brutal city where an immigrant boy, Ira Stigmanm is coming of age. Like Joyce's Stephen Dedalus, Ira begins to discover the genius and the burden of his imagination, as he takes his first tentative steps toward adulthood.

A contempoary of the great modernist writers, Roth is being rediscovered by a new generation of readers.

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Praise for Mercy of a Rude Stream

"Roth creates his own Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man--a marvelously poetic chronicle."--Chicago Sun-Times

"An extraordinary and provocative work. . . . One of the great literary comebacks of the century."--San Francisco Chronicle

"Mr. Roth's innovative use of language. . .is both beautiful and highly realistic. . . .Although there is no style called Rothian, there should be."--New York Times Book Review

Reviews from Goodreads

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Eoin  rated it  
Jan 6, 2009
How do you overcome 45 years of writer's block? Thoroughly, it is evident. Though not quite as spectacular as his first masterpiece, Mercy of a Rude Stream, insofar as the first volume of four published, two tba, is a finely made, cuttingly honest sequel. If you are willing to find the beauty in ...more
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David  rated it  
Jan 28, 2008
It's all in the tiny details - the repeating tiny details - seen from a child's eye, yes -- but also from the eye of a writer seventy years on, looking back and coming to terms with the event that is at the core of his writer's block... his inability to face the truth of the past.

Memory ...more
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Jenny  rated it  
Jan 18, 2010
1914. Ira Stigman is wrenched from the comforting familiarity of the Lower East Side and deposited in Harlem. He acquires a set of new "greenhorn" relatives from Europe who embarass him and he longs for someone who can teach him how to be American - or rather, how not to be Jewish. Ira ret ...more
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About the Author

Henry Roth

Henry Roth died on October 13, 1995. His extraordinary literary legacy includes the classic Call It Sleep and six volumes of Mercy of a Rude Stream, all completed before his death. A Diving Rock on the Hudson is the second volume in this series and follows A Star Shines over Mr. Morris Park, also published by Picador.

While still alive, Roth recieved two honorary doctorates, one from the University of New Mexico and one from the Hebrew Theological Institute in Cincinnati. Posthumously, he was honored by Hadassah Magazine with a special Harold U. Ribalow Prize for Distinguished Literary Achievement. He was also given a special honor by the Museum of the City of New York.

Henry Roth

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Mercy of a Rude Stream
A Star Shines over Mt. Morris Park
Henry Roth

Trade Paperback

Trade Paperback
Picador
December 1994
Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9780312119294
ISBN10: 0312119291
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 285 pages
$17.00
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