Other books:
Heads You Lose
In Search of Wholeness
The Light from Dead Stars
Our Haven and Our Strength
Sefer Ha'ikarim
The Sword of Goliath
Travels on the Private Zodiac
Travels on the Road Not Taken
Someone is shooting at Marvin Kalish... but why? What IS the truth about Marvin? And how does it bind Yudel Wolfzahn, Zelig Kropf, Bunny Falk, Dawn Kupchinsky and Marvin together in an elabroate relationship with implications far beyond the perimeters of their own lives? They solve riddle after riddle... only to find themselves presented with another of far greater importance and far-reaching implications.
Comments about The Truth About Marvin Kalish
What gathers force beneath the book’s richly intricate but seemingly effortless plot is a haunting undercurrent of mysticism. Medieval art, modern history and religious prophecy meet and join; the subject that surfaces, that ties speculative thought to action, is no less than the birth of the messiah. An ambitious undertaking, and Cohen’s prose—funny, learned, detailed, densely evocative of place and several levels of culture—is up to the task…the overall effects of this odd mystery novel are both engrossing and quite moving.—Douglas Hill in Books in Canada
Cohen is a marvelous creator of character: despite working with a pretty worn stereotype, the New York Jew, he produces fully rounded, idiosyncratic individuals, all of whom have roles in bringing about the coming of the messiah. Cohen moves his characters like chessmen and effectively mixes Jewish mysticism with elements of the mainstream thriller, producing a wholly unique novel.
—Ilene Cooper in Booklist (boxed review)
This novel brings together contraries: the banal and the cosmic, pathos and comedy, and all of it is soaked in Jewish life and lore…The book is funny and every single one of its characters is likeable. Queens is so realistically drawn that this insider feels perfectly at home in the novel’s geography. At the same time, these lively New Yorkers are all drawn against the background of Nazi barbarism, and we are made to see that the joys of their everyday lives emerge out of the ashes of the crematoria. The novel is informed by its author’s immense learning and wry humor, but neither will be obtrusive….
—Lori Lefkovitz in The Ohio Jewish Chronicle
Martin Cohen’s inventive comic novel contains the multiple charms of a mystery tale, a superior Harlequin romance, a Holocuast documentary and some Jewish apocalyptic vision. What is surprising is that the author has been able to weave these disparate elements together to form an intriguing and entertaining narrative…Cohen writes engagingly and his portraiture of Jewish life in America from the 1950s to the ‘80s shows an astute understanding of the mores of that community. Although the author intersperses his narrative with numerous dollops of some rather esoteric art history and messianic speculation, he never loses sight of the fact that he is a storyteller—and an excellent one at that.