Synopses & Reviews
New in Paperback
This 1979 classic tells the darkly humorous story of I.C. Trumpelman, a man whose fancy determines the fate of others. Chosen as the head of a Judenrat, Trumpelman thrives on the power granted him and creates an authoritarian regime of his own within the ghetto. By turns a con man, charismatic leader and merciless dictator, Trumpelman reveals himself as an extraordinarily complex protagonist.
Now available in a new paperback edition from Handsel Books, King of the Jews will continue to be an extraordinary vision of occupied Poland, and offer stunning insight through the trappings of history to questions of equal moral complexity today.
"Mature, brilliantly sustained, thoroughly engrossing."
-Newsweek
"The best book yet to be written on the Holocaust. A superb novel."
-San Francisco Chronicle
"Remarkable. A lesson in what artistic restraint can do to help us imagine the dark places in our history."
-The New York Times Book Review
"Profoundly daring...Epstein can summon up life from the bottom of despair."
-The Boston Globe
"Epstein has done the impossible. He has shown what the power of art--of his art—can reveal of the depths of the unspeakable."
-The Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
"Mature, brilliantly sustained, thoroughly engrossing." Newsweek
Review
"Remarkable. A lesson in what artistic restraint can do to help us imagine the dark places in our history." The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Beautiful, powerful, haunting....There can be no finer memorial to the victims." Jerusalem Post
Review
"So large and musical and atremble with imagination that only the iron-hearted will come away unshaken." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"The best book yet to be written on the Holocaust. A superb novel." San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"Profoundly daring....Epstein can summon up life from the bottom of despair." The Boston Globe
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"The first novel about the Holocaust that manages to be adequate to its own ambition." Larry McMurtry, New York Magazine
Review
"Epstein has done the impossible....He has shown what the power of art his art can reveal of the depths of the unspeakable." Philadelphia Inquirer
Synopsis
This 1979 classic tells the darkly humorous story of I.C. Trumpelman, a man whose fancy determines the fate of others. Chosen as the head of a Judenrat, Trumpelman thrives on the power granted him and creates an authoritarian regime of his own within the ghetto. By turns a con man, charismatic leader, and merciless dictator, Trumpelman reveals himself as an extraordinarily complex protagonist.
Now available in a new paperback edition from Handsel Books, King of the Jews will continue to be an extraordinary vision of occupied Poland, and offer stunning insight through the trappings of history to questions of equal moral complexity today.
Synopsis
In what has become a classic novel of the Holocaust, Leslie Epstein dares to explore the excruciating moral dilemma of the Judenrat, the group of Jewish officials who in each ghetto of Europe were forced to collaborate in the destruction of their own people, to choose who was to live and who was to die. It is especially the tale of one such leader, Isaiah Chaim Trumpelman, who strides across these pages, as he does across the lives of his subjects, with terrifying force. Part con man, part charismatic hero, both savior and executioner, he is, finally, a tragic character a figure of inexhaustible vitality who rules over a kingdom of death. But not only death: for this is also the story of the ghetto itself, a community which, while filled with dirt, disease, and despair, is no less marked by courage, irrepressible laughter, and a fierce grip upon life.
About the Author
Leslie Epstein, whose father and uncle, Philip G. and Julius J. Epstein, wrote Arsenic and Old Lace, Casablanca, and many other classics of the golden era of films, is the author of eight works of fiction, including Pandaemonium and Pinto and Sons. He lives in Brookline, Massachusettes, and has for many years directed the Creative Writing Program at Boston University.