The Runaway Soul: A Novel
Jun 2013 · Open Road Media
5.0star
1 review
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835
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About this eBook
DIVDIVHarold Brodkey’s acclaimed novel is a mesmerizing work of literary genius, exploring the momentous events in the life of a family in twentieth-century St. Louis, and a writer still haunted by a childhood tragedy /divDIV
First published in 1991, The Runaway Soul took Harold Brodkey more than three decades to complete. This sprawling novel has since been eagerly embraced by readers and critics alike, earning Brodkey the epithet of an “American Proust.” Told by Wiley Silenowicz, Brodkey’s fictional alter ego, the story snakes back and forth across the unforgettable events of a life. Following the traumatic death of his mother, Wiley recalls his troubling childhood in the care of his cousins: smooth-talking S. L. Silenowicz, his beautiful, emotionally deficient wife, Lila, and their abusive daughter, Nonie, who torments Wiley to no end./divDIV /divDIVIn language that soars and hypnotizes, The Runaway Soul fearlessly explores youth and adulthood, love and loss, sex and death, marriage and family, tracing upon one man’s odyssey through a troubling world. More than two decades after it first appeared in print, Harold Brodkey’s magnum opus remains one of the finest literary works produced by an American novelist in the twentieth century./div/div
First published in 1991, The Runaway Soul took Harold Brodkey more than three decades to complete. This sprawling novel has since been eagerly embraced by readers and critics alike, earning Brodkey the epithet of an “American Proust.” Told by Wiley Silenowicz, Brodkey’s fictional alter ego, the story snakes back and forth across the unforgettable events of a life. Following the traumatic death of his mother, Wiley recalls his troubling childhood in the care of his cousins: smooth-talking S. L. Silenowicz, his beautiful, emotionally deficient wife, Lila, and their abusive daughter, Nonie, who torments Wiley to no end./divDIV /divDIVIn language that soars and hypnotizes, The Runaway Soul fearlessly explores youth and adulthood, love and loss, sex and death, marriage and family, tracing upon one man’s odyssey through a troubling world. More than two decades after it first appeared in print, Harold Brodkey’s magnum opus remains one of the finest literary works produced by an American novelist in the twentieth century./div/div
Ratings and reviews
5.0
1 review
Satchel Cornstalk
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25 May 2015
Remarkable skill. This book conquers.
About the author
DIVDIVHarold Brodkey (1930–1996) was born Aaron Roy Weintrub into a Midwestern Jewish family. Both of his parents were recent immigrants from Russia, and after the death of his mother when he was not yet two years old, he was adopted by the Brodkeys, who were cousins on his father’s side. After graduating from Harvard in 1952, he moved to New York and came to prominence as a writer in the early 1950s, publishing collections such as Stories in an Almost Classical Mode and novels including Profane Friendship. Widely acknowledged as a modern master of short fiction, and the winner of two PEN/O. Henry Awards, Brodkey contributed regularly to the New Yorker and other publications. A long-time resident of New York City, Brodkey was married to novelist Ellen Schwamm. He announced in 1993 that he had contracted AIDS, and he died of complications from the virus in 1996. /div/div
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