Moloch: Or, This Gentile World

Henry Miller

Dec 2007 · Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

About this ebook

Uncovered along with Crazy Cock in 1988 by Miller biographer Mary V. Dearborn, Moloch emerged from the misery of Miller's years at Western Union and from the squalor of his first marriage. Set in the rapidly changing New York City of the early twenties, its hero is the rough-and-tumble Dion Moloch, a man filled with anger and despair. Trapped in a demeaning job, oppressed by an acrimonious home life, Moloch escapes to the streets only to be assaulted by a world he despises even more — a Brooklyn transformed into a shrill medley of ethnic sights, sounds, and smells. The antagonized Moloch strikes out blindly at everything he hates, battling against a world whose hostility threatens to overwhelm and destroy him.

About the author

Henry Valentine Miller (December 26, 1891 - June 7, 1980) American novelist, was born in New York City. His most famous works, Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, were written while Miller was an expatriate living in Paris and were originally published in France in the mid-1930s. At that time, the two books were widely considered obscene in the United States, and they were banned from sale there until 1961. Some of Miller's other works include The Colossus of Maroussi and Big Sur and the Oranges of Heironymus Bosch. Henry Miller was married five times and he also had an extended love affair with Anais Nin. He died in 1980 in his home in Pacific Palisades, California.