The Tenants of Moonbloom
Author | : Edward Lewis Wallant |
Publisher | : New York Review of Books |
Total Pages | : 268 |
Release | : 2018-02-06 |
ISBN-10 | : 9781681373041 |
ISBN-13 | : 1681373041 |
Rating | : 4/5 (41 Downloads) |
Book excerpt: Norman Moonbloom is a loser, a drop-out who can't even make it as a deadbeat. His brother, a slumlord, hires him to collect rent in the buildings he owns in Manhattan. Making his rounds from apartment to apartment, Moonbloom confronts a wildly varied assortment of brilliantly described urban characters, among them a gay jazz musician with a sideline as a gigolo, a Holocaust survivor, and a brilliant young black writer modeled on James Baldwin. Moonbloom hears their cries of outrage and abuse; he learns about their secret sorrows and desires. And as he grows familiar with their stories, he finds that he is drawn, in spite of his best judgment, into a desperate attempt to improve their lives. Edward Lewis Wallant's astonishing comic tour de force is a neglected masterpiece of 1960s America.