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The White Man in the Tree and other stories
Washington Square Press, 2000.
As described by The New York Times Book Review, “A sophisticated Novella and some wicked merry stories.” This collection of stories from the Caribbean on the comedy of differences--racial, religious, gender, nationality-- was a fiction debut greeted by rave reviews. Novelist Bob Shacochis, reviewing for the New York Times wrote, “ The White Man in the Tree...is Kurlansky’s fifth book but first of fiction, and a reader might reasonably wonder what took him so long to jump into the pool, given the strength of his talent.” The African Sun Times wrote, “ Mark Kurlansky was born to write fiction..he has an ability to unmask our foibles and write about love with wit and outright humor.” Illustrated by the author with pen and brush drawings.
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Click here to view selected Illustrations by the author.
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Find on: Indiebound, Amazon, Powells, BN, Borders ... Please support your local independent book store! |
Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue: A Novel of Pastry, Guilt, and Music.
Ballantine, 2005.
Set in the summer of 1988 when both Michael Dukakis and the New York Mets seemed destined for triumph but instead disintegrate, life is closing in on Nathan Seltzer, who rarely travels beyond his rapidly gentrifying Lower East Side neighborhood. Between paralyzing bouts of claustrophobia, Nathan wonders whether to cheat on his wife with Karoline, a German pastry makers whose parents may or may not have been Nazis. His father, Harry, is plotting with the 1960s boogaloo star Chow Mein Vega for the comeback of this dance craze. Meanwhile, a homicidal drug addict is terrorizing the neighborhood. With its cast of vivid characters, this is comedy of cultures, of the old and the new, of Latinos, Jews, Sicilians and Germans. It is about struggling to hold on to life in a rapidly changing world, about food, sex, and how our lives are shaped by love and Guilt. The London Literary Review wrote “By blending warm social comedy, period detail and perceptive psychology, Kurlansky, who writes from the heart and taste-buds....suggests that survival lies in an innate human capacity for reinvention.” The Washington Post wrote “Alternately sociological and silly, Boogaloo is a hit.” Illustrated by the author with pen and brush drawings.
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