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The Puttermesser Papers
CYNTHIA OZICK

The Puttermesser Papers by Cynthia Ozick
25 reviews (1997) (256p)
National Book Award Finalist
New York TimesĀ® Best Fiction Books

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Book Description
With dashing originality and in prose that sings like an entire choir of sirens, Cynthia Ozick relates the life and times of her most compelling fictional creation. Ruth Puttermesser lives in New York City. Her learning is monumental. Her love life is minimal (she prefers pouring through Plato to romping with married Morris Rappoport). And her fantasies have a disconcerting tendency to come true - with disastrous consequences for what we laughably call "reality."

Puttermesser yearns for a daughter and promptly creates one, unassisted, in the form of the first recorded female golem. Laboring in the dusty crevices of the civil service, she dreams of reforming the city - and manages to get herself elected mayor. Puttermesser contemplates the afterlife and is hurtled into it headlong, only to discover that a paradise found is also paradise lost. Overflowing with ideas, lambent with wit, The Puttermesser Papers is a tour de force by one of our most visionary novelists.

"The finest achievement of Ozick's career... It has all the buoyant integrity of a Chagall painting." -San Francisco Chronicle
"Fanciful, poignant... so intelligent, so finely expressed that, like its main character, it remains endearing, edifying, a spark of light in the gloom." -The New York Times
"A crazy delight." -The New York Time Book Review


Amazon.com Review
Fans of Cynthia Ozick are likely already familiar with Ruth Puttermesser, whose highly educated, unlucky-in-love but rather mystical existence as a Jewish woman in New York City has been chronicled in previously published stories appearing occasionally through the years. The Puttermesser Papers collects the old stories, along with several new ones, combined to create a funny and surreal picaresque narrative, touching upon Puttermesser's job at a blueblood law firm, her creation and intellectual sparring with the golem she makes out of soil from her flowerpots, her term as mayor of New York, her own death by murder, and beyond.


Other Award Winning Books by Cynthia Ozick
Quarrel & Quandary by Cynthia Ozick
3 reviews (2000) (272p) (Amazon)
Read Reviews | Visit this book's Amazon.com page
THE SHAWL by Cynthia Ozick
22 reviews (1989) (96p) (NYTimes)
Read Reviews | Visit this book's Amazon.com page
The Messiah of Stockholm by Cynthia Ozick
11 reviews (1987) (160p) (PF)
Read Reviews | Visit this book's Amazon.com page
The Cannibal Galaxy by Cynthia Ozick
3 reviews (1983) (161p) (PF)
Read Reviews | Visit this book's Amazon.com page
Levitation by Cynthia Ozick
  0 reviews (1982) (0p) (NBCCA)
Read Reviews | Visit this book's Amazon.com page
Bloodshed by Cynthia Ozick
  0 reviews (1976) (178p) (NBCCA)
Read Reviews | Visit this book's Amazon.com page

Cynthia Ozick Award Stats
Major Prize* Nominations 5  
Unique Books Nominated for a Major Prize* 5  
Pulitzer Prize Wins 0  
Pulitzer Prize Nominations 0  
National Book Critics Circle Award Wins 0  
National Book Critics Circle Award Nominations 2 Bloodshed · Levitation ·  
National Book Award Wins 0  
National Book Award Nominations 1 The Puttermesser Papers ·  
Man Booker Prize Wins 0  
Man Booker Prize Nominations 0  
PEN/Faulkner Award Wins 0  
PEN/Faulkner Award Nominations 2 The Cannibal Galaxy · The Messiah of Stockholm ·  

*Major Prize = Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, and PEN/Faulkner Award

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