Jerome Charyn Biography
(1937– ), Once Upon a Drosky, War Cries Over Avenue C, Panna Maria, Pinocchio's Nose
American novelist, born and educated in New York, where he has set at least fifteen of his mythic, nightmarish novels, from Once Upon a Drosky (1964) to War Cries Over Avenue C (1985). In Panna Maria (1982) Manhattan is reminiscent of the archaic Poland of Isaac Bashevis Singer. Pinocchio's Nose (1983) deals with the same material in science fiction form. A sequence of linked detective novels, also set in New York, has been collected as The Isaac Quartet (1984), and Metropolis (1986) is a non-fiction analysis of the city. Other novels include American Scrapbook (1969), about the incarceration of Japanese-Americans in the Second World War; The Tar Baby (1973), a surreal parody of the groves-of-academe novel; The Franklin Scare (1977), an evocation of F. D. Roosevelt; and Darlin' Bill (1980), a fantasia on the imaginary West of Wild Bill Hickok.
Additional topics
Literature Reference: American Literature, English Literature, Classics & Modern FictionEncyclopedia of Literature: Henry Carey Biography to Chekhov Biography