US/EN
I Am Abraham: A Novel of Lincoln and the Civil War
Jerome Charyn
(Author)
Arthur Morey
(Narrated by)
Description
Tracing the historic arc of Abraham Lincoln's life from his picaresque days as a gangly young man in Sangamon County, Illinois, through his improbable marriage to Kentucky belle Mary Todd, to his 1865 visit to war-shattered Richmond only days before his assassination, I Am Abraham hews to the familiar Lincoln saga, seamlessly braiding Lincoln family members and military figures with a parade of fictional extras - wise-cracking knaves, conniving hangers-on, patriotic whores, and dying soldiers. Using biblically cadenced prose, cornpone nineteenth-century humor, and Lincoln's own letters and speeches, Jerome Charyn concocts a profoundly moral but troubled commander in chief, whose relationship with his Ophelia-like wife and sons - Robert, Willie, and Tad - is explored with penetrating psychological insight, utmost compassion, and the most ingenious novelistic license.Product Details
Price
$59.99
$55.79
Publisher
Dreamscape Media
Publish Date
February 03, 2014
Dimensions
6.48 X 1.07 X 5.46 inches | 0.68 pounds
Language
English
Type
Compact Disc
EAN/UPC
9781629232706
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About the Author
Jerome Charyn, a master of lyrical farce and literary ventriloquism, published his first novel in 1964. The author of Johnny One-Eye and dozens of other acclaimed novels and nonfiction works, he lives in New York and Paris. READER BIO
Arthur Morey has performed in New York, Chicago, and Milan. He has freelanced scripts and won awards for both plays and fiction. A former literary manager, he has taught acting and writing. Winner of five AudioFile Earphones Awards, he has narrated novels by John Irving, Nathan Englander, Richard Russo, and John Burnam Schwartz, as well as nonfiction by Kurt Eichenwald, John McCain, George Tenet, Deepak Chopra, Gay Talese, and others.
Arthur Morey has performed in New York, Chicago, and Milan. He has freelanced scripts and won awards for both plays and fiction. A former literary manager, he has taught acting and writing. Winner of five AudioFile Earphones Awards, he has narrated novels by John Irving, Nathan Englander, Richard Russo, and John Burnam Schwartz, as well as nonfiction by Kurt Eichenwald, John McCain, George Tenet, Deepak Chopra, Gay Talese, and others.
Reviews
""The novel...succeeds in making the legendary figure more accessible, using Lincoln's lifelong battle with depression as an avenue through which to explore his life and perspective... A warts-and-all portrayal, not only of the lead, but of central supporting figures, most especially his tempestuous and difficult wife, Mary. Charyn has managed to craft a fictional autobiography that rings emotionally true."" - Publishers Weekly ""I Am Abraham is not only the best novel about President Lincoln since Gore Vidal's Lincoln in 1984, but it is also twice as good to read."" - Gabor Boritt, author of The Lincoln Enigma and recipient of the National Humanities Medal ""Audacious as ever, Jerome Charyn now casts his novelist's gimlet eye on sad-souled Abraham Lincoln, a man of many parts, who controls events and people - wife, sons, a splintering nation - even though they often are, as they must be, beyond his compassion or power. Brooding, dreamlike, resonant, and studded with strutting characters, I Am Abraham is as wide and deep and morally sure as its wonderful subjects."" - Brenda Wineapple, author of Ecstatic Nation: Confidence, Crisis, and Compassion: 1848-1877 ""If all historians - or any historian - could write with the magnetic charm and authoritative verve of Jerome Charyn, American readers would be fighting over the privilege of learning about their past. They can learn much from this book - an audacious, first-person novel that makes Lincoln the most irresistible figure of a compelling story singed with equal doses of comedy, tragedy, and moral grandeur. Here is something beyond history and approaching art."" - Harold Holzer, chairman, Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation ""Jerome Charyn is one of the most important writers in American literature."" - Michael Chabon ""Jerome Charyn is merely one of our finest writers with a polymorphous imagination and crack comic timing. Whatever milieu he chooses to inhabit, his characters sizzle with life, and his sentences are pure vernacular music, his voice unmistakable."" - Jonathan Lethem ""Charyn, like Nabokov, is that most fiendish sort of writer - so seductive as to beg imitation, so singular as to make imitation impossible."" - Tom Bissell
