The Demon in the Sun Parlor

Fülszöveg

Author of four previous highly acclaimed novels,
Lester Goran has established himself as one of
the dazzlingly original talents on the American
scene. The Demon in the Sun Parlor stands as his
finest work to date. In shocking turns comic,
macabre, and deeply moving, a work of brilliant,
<2/7f/c, hell-fire illumination, z7 places its author
in the first rank of contemporary novelists.
The scene of the novel is Miami—but a Miami as
foreign to tourists as the dark side of the
moon. It is Miami in the late nineteen thirties, a
home for ruined dreams, charred hopes, ?md /ast
souls. Here, m an abandoned villa, lives
Captain Joseph Ludwig. Life has left Ludwig—
once youngest captain in the U.S. Army, /a/er
failed real estate salesman and disgraced fireman—
with only one passion intact, one
one faith: his family.
There is Lotte, his ever-trusting wife; Sybil
and Barbara, his beautiful husband-hunting
daughters; a son, Gary, "the fastest Jewish
swimmer in the world'9;... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Author of four previous highly acclaimed novels,
Lester Goran has established himself as one of
the dazzlingly original talents on the American
scene. The Demon in the Sun Parlor stands as his
finest work to date. In shocking turns comic,
macabre, and deeply moving, a work of brilliant,
<2/7f/c, hell-fire illumination, z7 places its author
in the first rank of contemporary novelists.
The scene of the novel is Miami—but a Miami as
foreign to tourists as the dark side of the
moon. It is Miami in the late nineteen thirties, a
home for ruined dreams, charred hopes, ?md /ast
souls. Here, m an abandoned villa, lives
Captain Joseph Ludwig. Life has left Ludwig—
once youngest captain in the U.S. Army, /a/er
failed real estate salesman and disgraced fireman—
with only one passion intact, one
one faith: his family.
There is Lotte, his ever-trusting wife; Sybil
and Barbara, his beautiful husband-hunting
daughters; a son, Gary, "the fastest Jewish
swimmer in the world'9; and two very dissimilar
twins, Eric and Cody (the latter named after
Buffalo Bill). They are joined by Aunt Viola,
a heroine in a tattered shawl, and by Mrs. Parrott,
a bizarre refugee from Hitler who
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(continued from front flap)
arrives with an illegitimate baby and with a
wrathful husband in hot pursuit. This strange
ménage constitutes the world Ludwig has
dedicated himself to preserving—a world that
begins to crumble when young Eric, a child with
definite artistic gifts and unmistakable symptoms
of insanity, opens up a dark, murderous landscape
so desperate and threatening no one can place
a name on its inchoate terror.
Thus the stage is set for Ludwig's last stubborn
stand against malevolent destiny. His refusal
to accept his son's insanity, and his final ironic
moral victory in the face of all proof and
reason, forms the central strand of a novel that
has much to say about man's indestructible
inner core of pride and humanity. Here
is a superbly accomplished writer at the top of his
form—in a work of wit, compassion, and
truly unique vision.
Lester Goran was born in Pittsburgh in 1928. He
received B.A. and M.A. degrees from the
University of Pittsburgh. Currently he is an
Associate Professor of English at the University of
Miami. His previous four novels are: The
Paratrooper of Mechanic Avenue, Maria Light,
The Candy Butcher's Farewell, and The
Stranger in the Snow. Mr. Goran lives with his
wife and children in Coral Gablés, Florida. Vissza