Abraham: A Novel
Sparrow
"Charles Olson said that if he ever wrote about the American Civil War, he'd inscribe what he wrote to Frank O Hara. Sparrow's Abraham does the opposite: it is the book that Frank O Hara would have written about the American Civil War if he'd lived upstate, attuned to the materiality of everyday life, listening to the ghosts hiding in books found in small town libraries and yard sales, and the clamor of history discovered in a parking lot in Boiceville, NY, while waiting for a ride home.' Marcus Boon, author of In Praise of Copying
"As the Civil War continues to play out in U.S. politics, what better time to delve into the life of the leader who brought us through the bloodiest version of our national strife? Sparrow converts his obsession with Lincoln into a deeply personal excavation of what we know and don t know and should know about our iconic president." Violet Snow, contributor to Civil War Times and descendant of Civil War soldier William Davies --Back cover blurb
"Psychoanalyst Donald Burnham describes Strindberg's mental deterioration in Paris in about 1896: Books which he found in sidewalk bookstalls seemed to have been specially placed there for him. The design of the leather cover of one seemed to contain a prophecy for him and when he opened the book a sliver of wood pointed to a particular sentence. Now what if an amateur historian were to compose a biography using a similar method, that is, searching through the records of the past, not for the facts but for clues to another, unlooked-for dimension in the historical personage's life? That s what we have in Sparrow's new novel Abraham, a first-person narrator who undertakes this search, while, at the same time, describing his daily life raising a son with his down-to-earth, skeptical wife. So, an autobiography of a biographer. And who is the figure he is de-enshrounding? Abraham Lincoln, whose strange intuitions and proclivities are ferreted out by this witty, unconventional, often unbelievable hero." Jim Feast, author of Long Day, Counting Tomorrow --Back cover blurb
Paperback: 182 pages, 6x9 inch trim, $16.95
ISBN-13: 978-1570273612
This product was added to our catalog on Sunday 08 March, 2020.